UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


SCORPIO  No.   1 

Containing 

"A  POET-CARAVAN" 
And  Other  Sonnets 

By 

J.  A.  CHALONER 
Author  of  "Scorpio" 


'If  there's  a  hole  in  a'  your  coats, 

I  rede  ye  tent  it; 
A  chiel's  amang  ye  takin'  notes, 

And,  faith,  he'll  prent  it." 

— Burnt. 


•  129      7  •" 

PALMETTO  PRESS 
Roanoke  Rapids,  North  Carolina 

$1.50  Net 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  Thirteen 


COPYRIGHT 

PALMETTO  PRESS 

1913 


"PS 
3505 


V.?, 

tn  £>rnrptn  Nn.  1. 


In  the  Prologue  of  "Scorpio,"  page  x,  the  following 
words  occur,  to  wit  :  "We  shall  each  quarter  publish  a 
small  edition  of  'Scorpio,'  No.  i,  No.  2,  No.  3,  etc  ,  etc." 

We  have  so  done. 

We  shall  content  ourselves  with  stating  that  we  are 
more  than  satisfied  with  the  reception  of  "Scorpio"  at  the 
hands  of  the  reviewers.  A  perusal  of  the  reviews  cited  in 
the  Appendix  will  show  that  we  have  cause  —  as  we  lawyers 
say  —  for  said  state  of  mind.  Considering  the  brief  period 
that  has  elapsed  —  scarcely  six  weeks  or  so  —  since  "Scor- 
pio" was  sent  out  for  review,  the  reviews  have  been  ex- 
ceedingly prompt,  and  satisfactory  as  prompt. 

There  are  some  few  reviews  which  are  not  quite  so  sat- 
isfactory. 

Four  of  said  hostile  reviews  have  been  replied  to  by  us 
in  sonnets. 

The  two  or  three  other  less  satisfactory  reviews  are  far 
less  unsatisfactory  than  said  four  less  satisfactory  reviews. 
Said  diluted  unsatisfactoriness  —  so  to  speak  —  springs  from 
a  presumably  well-meaning  —  but  far  from  well-informed 
idea  —  that,  first:  there  is  danger  per  se  in  publishing  poetry 
(m) 


4C2G32 


PROLOGUE 


lest,  forsooth,  certain  alienists  assume  to  pronounce  poets 
crazy :  second:  that  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  is  in  want  of  a 
certificate  of  sanity  because,  now  nearly  seventeen  years 
ago,  a  "certificate  of  lunacy"  was  handed  out  to  him  by 
certain  alienists  in  New  York  City  at  the  instigation  of  his 
brothers  and  sisters  with  whom  he  had  been  on  unfriendly 
terms  for  about  ten  years,  owing  to  a  certain  wedding's 
having  occurred  at  which  said  brothers  and  sisters — again 
— for  cause —  had  not  been  "wedding  guests,"  as  the  "An- 
cient Mariner"  hath  it — if  we  remember  rightly. 

Now,  when  one  considers  that  the  chief  conspirator  in 
said  dastardly  conspiracy  against  the  liberty,  property, 
health,  happiness,  and  practically  life  of  a  citizen  of  the 
sovereign  State  of  Virginia,  by  a  handful  of  mercenary 
New  York  gentlemen  and  ladies — whose  aims  and  charac- 
teristics are  set  forth  in  a  triptych  of  three  sonnets — when 
one  considers  that  said  chief  conspirator,  a  brother  of  the 
author  of  "Scorpio"  is  a  proved  and  convicted  perjurer, 
upon  his  own  testimony,  in  a  deposition  made  by  him  in  the 
fall  of  1905  de  bene  esse,  as  the  legal  term  hath  it,  and  on 
file  in  the  New  York  Supreme  Court  on  Manhattan  Island 
for  all  who  run  to  read;  having  confessed  on  the  witness- 
stand  in  said  proceeding,  that  he  had  never  seen  the  falsely 
alleged  acts  he  and  his  fellow  perjurers  and  conspirators 
he  and  they — as  falsely  as  he — swore  to  having  seen  take 
place  at  "The  Merry  Mills,"  nor  heard  the  falsely  alleged 
statements  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  author  of  "Scorpio" 


PROLOGUE 


by  himself  and  brother  perjurers  and  conspirators,  and 
upon  which  perjured  statements  alone  the  author  of  "Scor- 
pio" lost  now  nearly  seventeen  years  of  his  life — a?  life — J 
that  is,  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  unsullied  name  and  the  con- 
trol and  custody  of  his  own  money ;  and  when  one  considers 
further  that  the  supplementary  testimony  of  the  said  alien- 
ists was  palpably  perjured  besides  being  palpably  bought 
and  paid  for  on  the  evidence — all  of  which  is  fully  set  forth 
and  has  been  for  lo !  now  these  seven  years  in  "Four  Years 
Behind  the  Bars  of  'Bloomingdale' ;  Or,  The  Bankruptcy 
of  Law  in  New  York" — a  document  founded  entirely  and 
absolutely  upon  court  records  and  affidavits — when  one 
calmly  considers  all  said  bristling,  obstinate,  obvious  facts, 
one  is  inclined  to  infer  that  there  is  more  need  of  a  reforma- 
tion of  the  Lunacy  Laws  of  about  forty  per  cent,  of  the 
States  of  this  great  Nation — than  a  certificate  of  sanity  for 
ourselves — as  has  been  learnedly  decreed  by  the  guides  of 
courts  and  lawyers,  namely,  the  Law  Reviews,  of  which 
five  have  been  placed  in  the  Appendix  of  "Scorpio  No.  i" — 
as  the  five  were  placed  in  the  Appendix  of  "Scorpio"  and 
shall  continue  to  be  so  placed  until  the  people  and  news- 
papers wake  up  and  remove  the  sword  of  Damocles  sus- 
pended over  the  head  of  roughly  estimated,  say  some  forty 
millions  of  citizens,  male  and  female,  by  a  single  hair. 

We  did  not  willingly  trench  upon  said  topic.  It  was 
forced  down  our  throat  by  the  Philadelphia  "Inquirer's" 
"bright  young  man,"  in  the  two  following  editorial  para- 


PROLOGUE 


graphs — as  they  came  to  us  from  our  News  Clipping  Bu- 
reau— to  wit:  Philadelphia  "Inquirer,"  May  6th,  1913. 
"We  understand  that  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  has  pub- 
lished a  book  of  poems,  which  leads  us  to  suspect  that  that 
New  York  Commission  in  lunacy  was  not  so  far  wrong 
after  all."  And  again:  "May  I3th,  1913:"  "Right  on  top 
of  the  statement  of  that  alienist  that  nine-tenths  of  the 
poets  are  crazy,  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  has  come  out 
with  the  announcement  that  he  has  written  a  whole  book 
of  'pomes.'  "  In  the  first  place,  we  never  attempted  such  a 
witticism  as  the  last  quoted  word  implys ;  in  the  second,  any 
such  alienist  is — on  the  evidence — so  to  speak,  a  "dam- 
phool,"  and  in  the  last  place,  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  has  no 
need  to  care  what  alienists  allegedly  think  of  him,  since  the 
Circuit  Court  of  Albemarle  County,  Virginia,  pronounced 
him  sane  and  competent,  November  6th,  1901,  and  the 
Superior  Court  of  North  Carolina,  shortly  thereafter,  and 
the  United  States  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals,  sitting  in  New 
York  City,  handed  down  an  opinion — 162  Federal  Reports, 
19,  cited  in  "Scorpio" — so  far  back  as  1908,  in  which  that 
august  body — second  only  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  held  as  follows:  "The  petitioner  (J.  A.  C.) 
as  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  Virginia,  in  bringing  his  said 
suit"  (for  the  recovery  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  property 
illegally  taken  from  him  by  one  Thomas  T.  Sherman,  the 
defendant)  "in  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  was 
availing  himself  of  a  right  founded  upon  this  constitutional 


PROLOGUE 


provision."  ("The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  vests 
in  its  judicial  department  jurisdiction  over  controversies 
between  citizens  of  different  States")  (the  defendant,  Sher- 
man, hails  from  New  York)  "and  he  came  into  that  court 
with  a  decree  of  the  court  of  the  State  of  which  he  was  a 
citizen"  (said  Virginia  decree  of  November  6th,  1901) 
"declaring  his  sanity.  We  cannot  disregard  that  decree. 
In  considering  it  we  do  not  ignore  the  orders  of  the  courts 
of  New  York.  Insanity  is  not  necessarily  permanent.  For 
the  purpose  of  this  petition — laying  aside  jurisdictional 
questions — we  may  properly  consider  that  the  petitioner  was 
insane  when  so  declared  in  New  York,  but  that  he  had  re- 
covered his  sanity  when  he  was  declared  sane  in  Virginia." 
Which  is  a  judicial  way  of  putting  the  following :  "The  pe- 
titioner declares  under  oath  that  the  parties  behind  the 
lunacy  proceedings  against  him,  on  the  evidence,  in  New 
York,  the  parties  openly  swearing  to  said  proceedings  and 
therefore  responsible  for  same,  namely,  his  own  brothers, 
perjured  themselves.  If  such  was  the  case  the  New  York 
court  never  obtained  jurisdiction  over  the  person  or  prop- 
erty of  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  the  petitioner,  since  per- 
jury is  fraud,  and  fraud  destroys  everything  in  law.  That 
question,  however,  has  not  been  presented  to  us;  as  it  has 
to  be  first  tried  in  the  lower  court — said  Federal  District 
Court — until  said  question  is  finally  decided,  we — for  the 
sake  of  argument — have  to  allow  Chaloner  to  remain  un- 
der the  stigma  of  insanity,  branded  upon  him  by  his  broth- 


PROLOGUE 


ers  in  1897  and  1899  in  order  that  we  may  remove  said 
stigma  from  him  now,  on  the  strength  of  the  decree  of  the 
Virginia  Court,  holding  him  sane  and  competent  in  1901." 

We  hasten  to  apologize  to  laymen  for  spreading  so 
much  erudite  law  before  their  bewildered  gaze — but  really 
— after  writing  the  rascally,  thieving,  lying,  debauching 

and  debauched  other  side  "to  H 1-and-on-down,"  as 

Carlyle  once  jocularly  observed — after  writing  said  bare- 
faced villains  to  "H 1-and-on-down"  in  the  five  hundred 

or  so  scoriae  pages  of  "F.  Y.  B.,"  etc.,  aforesaid,  the  sub- 
ject has  become  somewhat  stale  in  our  literary  nostrils, 
somewhat  of  a  stench  and  we  have  a  strong  disgust  of 
touching  upon  it :  we  therefore  once  more  reopen  the  seven- 
teen-year-old scar,  and  start  the  old  wound  to  running  once 
more — for  the  edification  of  "bright  young  men"  of  the 
kidney  of  the  aforesaid  Philadelphia  "Inquirer,"  and  the 
more  diluted  unsatisfactories  aforesaid,  with  the  wish  and 
hope — we  might  almost  say,  devout  prayer — that  said  flush- 
ing of  the  scuppers  of  said  hostile  craft,  may  suffice  once 
and  forever;  and  that  in  future  our  work  may  be  judged 
fearlessly  on  its  merits  by  even  diluted  hostiles,  enfran- 
chised for  all  time  from  the  threatening  pestle  of  a  lunacy 
quack! 

In  dismissing  this  malodorous  topic  from  a  work  as 
divorced  from  matters  legal  as  the  Muses  are  from  medi- 
cine, we  shall  point  out  that  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  who 
spent  nearly  four  years  of  a  life-sentence  in  "Blooming- 


PROLOGUE 


dale" — falsely  so  called — its  real  name  being  "The  Society 
of  the  New  York  Hospital"  with  Hospital  and  Offices — 
the  last  time  we  were  on  foot  in  New  York,  i.e.,  in  March, 
1897 — in  Fifteenth  Street,  a  few  doors  west  of  Fifth  Ave- 
nue— we  shall  point  out  that  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  never 
was  condemned  by  either  a  judge  or  a  jury  that  ever  laid 
eyes  on  him ;  that  no  judge  has  ever  seen  him  in  New  York, 
nor  no  jury!  That  in  1897  he  was  condemned  unheard. 
That  in  1899  he  was  condemned  unheard.  So  much  for  the 
"bankruptcy  of  law"  in  Gotham,  and  about  forty  per  cent, 
of  the  sovereign  States  of  this  great  Union.  That  the  main 
conspirators  before  the  fact  were  Messrs.  Winthrop  Astor 
Chanler — veteran,  wounded  in  the  Spanish  War.  Former 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  New  York,  Lewis  Stuyvesant 
Chanler — these  were  the  lay-perjurers — so  to  speak. 
While  one,  Moses  A.  Starr,  M.D.,  was  the  professional  per- 
jurer in  the  1897  proceedings.  Which  is  to  say  that  New 
York  alienists  are  practically  professional  perjurers. 
Which  is  to  say  that  they  depend  upon  the  art  of  perjury 
for  their  daily  bread.  Thus.  A  lunacy  shyster — such  as 
Henry  Lewis  Morris,  of  the  firm  of  Morris  and  Main,  New 
York  City,  Colonel  William  Jay — of  the  firm  of  Jay  and 
Candler,  Wall  Street,  New  York,  Egerton  L.  Winthrop, 
Jr. — of  the  same  firm,  or  Joseph  H.  Choate,  Jr.,  of  the 
firm  of  Evarts,  Choate  and  Sherman,  same  street,  same 
town — a  lunacy  shyster  comes  to  them  and  says,  very  much 
as  follows :  "We  have  a  party  we  want  to  run  into  'Bloom- 


PROLOGUE 


ingdale'  for  life.  He's  perfectly  sane,  but  he  and  his  fam- 
ily have  fallen  out  over  a  certain  marriage,  and  they  want 
him  put  out  of  the  way  for  life.  You  know  that  nothing 
is  easier,  nothing  is  simpler,  and  above  and  beyond  all, 
nothing  is  safer  for  you  and  us  than  to  railroad  him  behind 
the  bars  on  a  'doctored'  charge  of  insanity,  provided  only 
you  play  your  cards  properly.  All  you've  got  to  do  is  to 
make  out  a  couple  of  false  affidavits  for  the  two  of  you — 
it  takes  two  doctors  to  commit  a  man  under  the  New  York 
Insanity  Laws  of  1896 — one  apiece,  we  mean,  in  which  you 
swear  that  the  party  said  certain  irrational  things  in  your 
hearing,  and  did  certain  irrational  things  in  your  presence, 
and  that,  in  your  opinion,  he  is  a  fit  subject  for  confinement 
for  life  in  a  Madhouse.  You  will  get  a  thousand  dollars 
apiece  for  your  affidavits.  His  brothers  will  pay  you  that 
out  of  his  property." 

Lunacy  doctors  in  New  York — and  in  all  large  cities, 
are  under  a  terrible  temptation  to  perjure  away  a  man's  lib- 
erty, happiness,  health  and  property  for  life.  All  men  of 
experience  know  what  happens  when  a  terrible  temptation 
confronts  the  average  citizen.  Said  average  citizen 
knuckles  under  to  said  temptation,  for  the  good  and  suffi- 
cient reason,  for  the  average  citizen,  that  it  is  terrible. 
Lunacy  shysters  in  New  York  are  also  under  a  terrible 
temptation  for  the  self-same  reason,  and,  alas !  with  the 
self -same  result!  By  lunacy  shysters  we  do  not  mean  the 
ordinary  shyster  known  to  newspaper  men — the  "Tomb's 


PROLOGUE 


shyster"  in  New  York,  and  the  criminal  court  shysters  in 
other  cities.  No,  we  do  not  have  in  mind  any  such  har- 
ried, hurried,  foul-looking  "hard-up"  individual  as  the  above 
— far  from  it.  The  lunacy  shyster  differs  materially  from 
his  brother  of  the  Tombs.  The  lunacy  shyster  is  far  from 
being  a  shyster  in  appearance.  The  lunacy  shyster  is  gen- 
erally a  gentleman  not  only  in  bearing  and  dress,  but  by 
blood.  Lunacy  shysters  in  New  York,  particularly,  are 
blue-blooded.  Colonel  William  Jay  is  descended  lineally 
from  John  Jay,  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  this  distressful 
country.  Fancy  the  great-grandson  of  a  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States  developing  into  a  practicing  shyster!  0! 
temp  or  a.  O!  mores! 

Henry  Lewis  Morris,  again,  is  the  lineal  descendant 
of  Lewis  Morris,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. Egerton  L.  Winthrop,  Jr.,  is  the  son  of  the  Beau 
Brummel  of  the  New  York  "Four  Hundred,"  to  wit :  Eger- 
ton L.  Winthrop,  Sr.,  both  of  whom  are  descended  on  the 
male — as  we  are  on  the  female  side — from  John  Winthrop, 
the  first  Governor  of  Massachusetts.  Lastly,  brother 
Candler — while  not  being  blue-blooded — being  a  novus 
homo,  a  "new  man,"  as  the  Romans  had  it,  i.e.,  a  man 
whose  ancestors  had  never  been  distinguished  in  the  State 
— yet  he  is  descended  from  an  ancient  Roman  sacrificing- 
priest — at  least  if  there  is  anything  in  a  name — for  his 
name  is  "Flamen" — Flamen  B. — of  which  the  dictionary 
says,  to  wit :  "The  person  who  lights  the  sacrificial  fires ;  a 


PROLOGUE 


priest  of  ancient  Rome."  At  all  events  he  "lit  the  sacrifi- 
cial fires"  in  our  particular  case  all  right,  all  right!  He  it 
was,  who  in  conjunction  with  Cousin  Egerton  L.  Win- 
throp,  Jr.,  and  Colonel  William  Jay,  under  the  orders  of  the 
head  legal  devil  in  the  combine — the  Chanler  family's  fam- 
ily lawyer,  who  acted  as  the  "Bloomingdale"  steering  com- 
mittee— said  Henry  Lewis  Morris,  put  thro'  the  debauched 
and  perjured  proceedings  before  the  Sheriff's  Jury  in  New 
York  in  1899,  at  the  instigation  of  the  aforesaid  Messrs. 
Chanler,  aided  and  abetted  by  those  two  hoary  old  ruze 
dogs  of  veteran-perjurers  Docs.  Austin  Flint,  Sr.,  and 
Carlos  F.  Macdonald,  both  of  Gotham.  Said  proceedings 
were  held  before  a  phantom- jury — to  coin  a  phrase.  A 
jury  of  phantoms  sat  on  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  twenty 
miles  away  from  him  and  his  cell  at  "Bloomingdale,"  falsely 
so  called,  and  solemnly  pronounced  him  a  hopeless  lunatic 
and  incompetent  person,  without  having  laid  eyes  on  him ! 
So  far  as  we  were  concerned,  at  all  events,  said  Sheriff's 
Jury  was  a  Phantom  Jury. 

The  last  lot  of  rascals  to  be  unearthed  by  us  in  this 
Prologue  is  a  very  dignified  lot  of  rascals  indeed !  High  in 
the  counsels  of  the  Church,  of  the  Law,  of  Finance,  and  of 
Society  in  the  Metropolis  of  the  United  States,  "little  old 
New  York." 

We  now  copy  from  pages  135-136  in  "Four  Years  Be- 
hind the  Bars  of  'Bloomingdale,'  "  from  which  the  above 
pages  are  a  rehash  more  or  less  gentle,  diluted,  and  mild. 


PROLOGUE 


To  wit :  "From  .  .  .  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Society 
of  The  New  York  Hospital,  for  the  year  1899,  now  before 
me  ...  I  read  under  the  heading: 

'STANDING  COMMITTEES  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  GOVERNORS. 
Executive. 

William  Warner  Hoppin,  Henry  W.  De  Forest,  El- 
bridge  T.  Gerry,  Edmund  D.  Randolph,  Hermann  H.  Cam- 
mann,  George  G.  Haven,  George  S.  Bowdoin,  George  G. 
DeWitt,  Edward  King,  Augustus  D.  Juilliard,  William 
Alexander  Duer,  Howard  Townsend. 

Blooming  dale. 

Frederick  D.  Tappan,  Chairman;  Richard  Trimble, 
Waldron  Post  Brown,  Philip  Schuyler,  James  William 
Beekman,  Thomas  H.  Barber. 

On  Law. 

Elbridge  T.  Gerry,  Henry  W.  De  Forest,  George  G. 
DeWitt. 

Real  Estate. 

Hermann  H.  Cammann,  Chairman ;  James  O.  Sheldon, 
Waldron  Post  Brown,  George  S.  Bowdoin,  Edward  King. 

On  Nominations. 

Elbridge  T.  Gerry,  Philip  Schuyler,  Edmund  D.  Ran- 
dolph. 


PROLOGUE 


The  President,  Vice-President  and  Treasurer  are  ex- 
officio  members  of  all  committees. 

.  .  .  Reading  David  H.  King,  Jr.,  as  a  misprint  for 
Edward  King,  or  vice  versa,  the  above  committees  contain 
the  full  list  of  'Governors'  of  'Bloomingdale'  except  Messrs. 
Sheppard  Gandy,  President;  Theodorus  B.  Woolsey,  Vice- 
President;  J.  Edward  Simmons,  Treasurer;  Henry  W. 
Crane,  Secretary;  Fordham  Morris,  George  F.  Baker,  and 
Joseph  Hodges  Choate."* 

Surely  as  gilded  a  set  of  rascals  as  ever  glared  a  reader 
in  the  eye! 

Surely  a  noteworthy  congeries  of  rogues,  surely. 

Said  gay  birds  of  gilded  plumage  plucked  us  neatly  of 
some  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  coldest  cash,  mulcted  from 
us  as  we  lay  helpless  in  a  cell,  at  the  hands  of  Stanford 
White — since  gone  to  a  higher  tribunal — and  later,  by  his 
brother-in-law,  Prescott  Hall  Butler,  also  dead.  The  latter 
was  in  the  interesting  position  of  being  our  "guide,  philoso- 
pher and  friend,"  known  in  law  as  "committee  of  the  per- 

*Pages  242-243  "F.  Y.  B.,"  etc.,  aforesaid:  "Taken  from  The  So- 
ciety of  the  New  York  Hospital,'  I27th  Annual  Report,  for  the  year 
1897: 

GOVERNORS. 

Sheppard  Gandy,  President ;  Theodorus  B.  Woolsey,  Vice-Presi- 
dent; J.  Edward  Simmons,  Treasurer;  Joseph  H.  Choate,  William 
Warner  Hoppin,  Elbridge  T.  Gerry. 

In  the  Annual  Report  of  the  said  institution  for  the  year  1899,  we 
find  the  Board  of  Governors  composed  of  the  same  members  with  the 
exception  that  Howard  Townsend  and  George  F.  Baker  take  the  places 
of  Cornelius  N.  Bliss  and  Francis  Lynde  Stetson." 


PROLOGUE 


son  and  estate  of  the  incompetent" — your  very  humble  ser- 
vant— appointed  at  the  solicitation  of  the  Chanler  family, 
male  and  female,  for  the  reason  that  said  Butler  was  a  law- 
partner  of  Joseph  Hodges  Choate,  Sr.,  ex-Ambassador 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  and  very  much  a  member  of  the 
"Board  of  Governors"  of  "Bloomingdale."  It  requires  no 
very  profound  thought  to  discern  why  the  Chanters,  male 
and  female,  chose  Butler.  Furthermore.  The  Chanlers 
desired — besides  glutting  a  spite  secretly  nursed  against  us 
for  nine  years — from  June  I4th,  1888 — the  date  of  a  cer- 
tain wedding — to  March  I3th,  1897,  when  we  were  arrested 
by  two  plainclothesmen  from  Mulberry  Street  Police  Sta- 
tion— while  sojourning  quietly  in  lodgings  at  a  hotel  in 
New  York — and  escorted  without  any  undue  argument  upon 
our  part  politely  and  quietly  to  "Bloomingdale"  for  life — 
the  Chanlers,  male  and  female,  saw  a  chance  to  make  sev- 
eral million  "honest"  pennies  apiece — to  put  it  mildly — by 
running  us  in  for  life  and,  upon  our  demise,  appropriating 
our  million  and  a  half  on  the  ground  that  we  were  a  lunatic 
and  that  any  will  made  by  us  was  null — it  having  leaked 
out  that  we  had  made  the  University  of  Virginia  and  other 
Educational  Institutions  our  beneficiaries  under  our  will — 
since  the  Chanlers  are  all  millionaires  and  don't  really  need 
our  money. 

They  therefore  chose  a  man  like  Butler  who  was  in  a 
position  to  benefit  financially  himself  from  the  annual  heavy 
bribe  of  five  thousand  two  hundred  dollars  a  year — not 


PROLOGUE 


counting  extras — which  we  were  charged  for  a  two-roomed 
cell,  and  a  thirty-dollar-a-month  Irish  keeper,  on  a  purely 
vegetarian  and  "teetotal"  diet,  and  paying  extra  for  prac- 
tically every  thing  we  eat,  for  the  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
son that  the  food  in  "Bloomingdale"  was  either  badly 
cooked,  adulterated,  or  decayed,  and  wre  bought  food  out- 
side "the  institution"  and  had  it  shipped  in. 

Ex- Ambassador  Choate  "being  a  beneficiary  under  the 
Trust" — as  we  lawyers  say — which,  being  interpreted, 
means  that  he,  very  presumably  indeed,  duly  received  his 
share  of  "rake  off"  from  our  good  five  thousand  two  hun- 
dred per,  not  counting  extras.  For  "Bloomingdale,"  false- 
ly so  called,  is  no  philanthropic  enterprise  by  a  very  large 
majority.  Nor  is  it  a  State  Institution,  but  purely  and  sim- 
ply a  private  money-making  concern  of  the  good  old  sort  so 
frequently  found  hidden  away  in  New  York. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Butler  was  going  to  turn 
loose  a  star-easy-mark,  a  goose  that  laid  the  five  thousand 
and  more  golden  eggs  on  the  counter  of  the  hospitable  Hos- 
pital of  "Bloomingdale"  per  annum  for  life — he  fondly 
hoped.  There  would  be  nothing  smacking  of  business 
principles  in  that.  And  a  standing  motto  of  the  Chanler 
family  is,  "There  is  no  sentiment  in  business,"  in  which  sen- 
timent hundreds  of  thousands  of  New  Yorkers  join  hands 
heartily  with  the  Chanlers.  Hence  the  selection  of  said  de- 
funct gentleman,  by  the  loving  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
author  of  "Scorpio,"  for  the  latter's  gaoler — in  conjunc- 


PROLOGUE 


tion  with  ex-Ambassador  Choate,  Elbridge  T.  Gerry,  et  id 
hoc  genus  omne  "bunch." 

We  are  well  aware  that  our  frank  tearing  away  of  the 
veil  of  respectability  from  the  hoary  visages  of  Messrs. 
Choate,  Gerry  and  their  confederates  in  crime — as  afore- 
said— will  meet  with  hems  and  haws  and  possibly  frowns 
and  muttered  growls  from  the  "little  brothers  of  the  rich" 
who  spittle-lick  rich  men  for  the  love  of  the  thing.  We 
shall  be  surprised  if  certain  newspapers  in  New  York — 
controlled  by  the  friends  and  business  associates  of  "The 
Forty  Thieves  of  'Blooming dale'  "  as  we  dubbed  the  band 
of  marauders  headed  by  Messrs.  Choate  and  Gerry  in  "F. 
Y.  B.,"  etc.,  seven  years  ago,  without  ever  hearing  the 
slightest  peep  of  remonstrance  for  the  above  rough  hand- 
ling by  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  from  his  victims  afore- 
said; we  shall  be  surprised  if  the  friendly,  allied,  or  pos- 
sibly, subsidized,  newspapers  in  New  York  will  care  to  say 
much  about  "Scorpio  No.  i,"  if  said  papers  even  care  to  say 
much  about  "Scorpio" ;  since  we  have  heard  no  hint  or  sign 
from  said  papers  since  sending  them  "Scorpio"  for  review. 
But,  as  has  been  observed  before,  "Scorpio"  has  come  to 
stay,  and  no  amount  of  hostility  upon  the  part  of  a  news- 
paper, nor  any  number  of  newspapers,  can  hold  "Scorpio" 
down,  for  several  reasons  which  we  shall  now  in  winding 
up  our  Prologue — state. 

Primo.     Life  is  getting  more  and  more  complicated, 
and  therefore  more  and  more  difficult,  and  therefore  more 


PROLOGUE 


wretchedly  unhappy,  as  the  years  roll  on.  Look  at  one 
single  question :  Labour.  What  are  you  going  to  say  about 
that?  Look  at  the  strikes  the  world  over,  born  from  an 
increasing  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the  distribution  of  the 
good  things  of  life,  and  a  growing  knowledge  upon  the 
working  man's  part  of  the  Moloch-like  nature  of  the  em- 
ployer of  labour,  from  the  very  necessity  of  business,  whose 
motto  is  "Business  is  business." 

Such  being  the  case,  so  seething  with  unrest  is  the  in- 
dustrial world,  the  world  over,  that  all  proved  instances  of 
dishonesty,  hypocrisy,  and  crime,  upon  the  part  of  the  very 
rich,  help  the  cause  of  the  poor  man,  by  bringing  over  re- 
cruits to  his  standard  from  the  heretofore  indifferent  poor, 
or  even  well-to-do.  Therefore  such  instances — after  be- 
ing proved  true — are  readily  seized  by  the  friends  and  lead- 
ers of  the  poor  in  their  increasingly  deadly,  increasingly 
internecine  struggle  with  the  greedy  rich,  and  used  as  am- 
munition by  their  orators  on  the  stump  to  arouse  the  indif- 
ferent to  the  state  of  the  world. 

To  take  but  one  brief  but  momentous  instance  starting 
right  in  "little  old  New  York"  once  more. 

The  instance  in  question  is  the  revelations  re  the  secret 
conduct  of  Life  Insurance  Societies  a  few  years  ago,  which 
raised  such  a  stink  in  the  "Equitable" — to  take  but  one  in- 
stance of  a  blackeyed  institution,  hitherto  among  the  haugh- 
tiest of  the  haughty. 


PROLOGUE 


What  a  death  blow  that  was  to  certain  Insurance  mag- 
nates, to  be  sure! 

What  a  revelation  as  to  New  York  business  ethics  for 
a  fact! 

And  yet  how  tame,  colourless  and  mild  that  scandal 
stands  beside  the  one  "Scorpio"  has  taken  upon  itself  to  run 
to  earth  and  sting  to  death! 

We  allude  to  the  White  Slavery  practiced  openly  in 
New  York  under  the  guise  of  Lunacy  Procedure:  supported 
by  the  Courts,  supported  by  the  Church — in  that  the 
Church  is  silent  under  proved  charges  there-anent — sup- 
ported by  the  Legal  Profession,  supported  by  the  Medical 
Profession,  supported  by  Finance — supported  by  Wall 
Street — and  finally,  supported  by  Society,  known  as  the 
"Four  Hundred." 

As  we  observed  in  "F.  Y.  B.,"  etc.,  "Bloomingdale"  is 
the  "Bastile"  of  the  "Four  Hundred." 

The  only  people  who  do  not  support  and  hold  up  the 
arms  of  this  iniquity,  are  the  plain  people — are  the  poor. 

And  it  is  to  the  plain  people,  to  the  poor  that  "Scorpio" 
is  going  to  tell  the  tale  of  "Bloomingdale." 

The  Federation  of  Labor  would  like  to  know  all  about 
it. 

The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  would  like  to 
know  all  about  it. 

The  Socialists  would  like  to  know  all  about  it. 

And  before  very  long,  they  shall  know  all  about  it. 


PROLOGUE 


Even  Anarchy  is  palpably  preferable  to  organised,  pro- 
tected, intrenched  and  triumphant  perjury,  robbery,  and 
murder. 

For  Anarchy  aims  at  freedom  from  organizations  of 
any  kind  interfering  with  the  personal  freedom  of  the  in- 
dividual: and  we  have  clearly  shown  above — supported  as 
we  are  by  the  Court  Records  aforesaid,  spread  at  large  on 
the  pages  of  "Four  Years  Behind  the  Bars,"  etc. — that  per- 
jury, robbery,  and  murder  are  thoroughly  organised,  not 
only  on  the  East  Side  in  New  York,  but  on  Fifth  Avenue. 

In  closing  our  quiet  Prologue,  we  beg  leave  to  caution 
the  hostiles  not  to  lie  about  us,  or  we  shall  so  dub  them  in 
"Scorpio  No.  2,"  due  to  come  out  on  or  about  September 
ist,  next.  We  allude  specifically  to  objecting  to  being 
dubbed  a  friend  or  supporter  of  Anarchy,  simply  because 
we  have  had  the  perspicacity  and  courage  to  point  out  that 
there  is  something  worse  than  Anarchy,  and  that  that  some- 
thing now  occupies  the  seats  of  the  mighty  in  the  metrop- 
olis of  this  allegedly  civilized,  allegedly  humane  and  Chris- 
tian country.  We  would  notify  these  "cubs"  that  we  are 
a  pillar  of  the  law,  not  an  Anarchist.  Even  a  cub-reporter 
should  know  enough  to  know  that  a  recognized  law-writer, 
such  as  we  will  be  found  to  be  by  anyone  who  can  read,  who 
will  turn  to  the  back  of  this  modest  little  book  and  gaze  upon 
the  laurels  showered  upon  us  by  those  "in  the  know"  among 
the  Law  Reviews  of  this  great  nation  re  "The  Lunacy  Law 
of  the  World" — as  we  were  about  to  observe,  even  a  cub, 


PROLOGUE 


an  unlicked  cub  at  that,  should  have  enough  gumption — 
enough  go-in-out-of-the-rain,  to  know  that  a  law-writer  is 
no  Anarchist.  For  Anarchy  means  no  law. 

Now,  to  turn  at  last,  to  the  far  more  congenial  task 
of  discussing  poetry. 

At  the  very  outset,  we  wish  to  tender  our  sincere 
thanks  to  those  newspapers'  critics,  whose  criticisms  are  ap- 
pended herein,  for  the  real  encouragement  and  satisfaction 
their  appreciation  was  to  us.  We  are  well  aware  that  the 
launching  of  "Scorpio"  was  a  rather  risky  venture  from 
the  fact  that  it  was  so  liable  to  be  misunderstood,  from  *hc 
more  or  less  newness  of  the  point  of  view  of  the  writer. 

Having  discharged  gladly  our  debt  of  thanks,  we  next 
approach  a  topic  which,  perforce,  must  have  raised  its  Gor- 
gon-head the  very  instant  a  critic  saw  that  the  writer  had 
brought  out,  in  so  short  a  time,  another  book  of  sonnets. 

The  name  of  said  Gorgon,  of  course,  is  overproduc- 
tion :  writing  one's  self  out. 

We  hasten  to  say  that  there  is  no  apparent  danger  of 
that  for  the  following  reasons : 

First :  The  writer  has  on  hand  some  five  hundred  son- 
nets done  as  follows.  Three  hundred  and  fifty  sonnets  were 
written  in  "Bloomingdale"  between  the  years  1898  and 
1900,  inclusive.  Since  that  time,  the  writer  was  so  driven 
and  harried  by  law  suits  which  he  himself  had  to  supervise 
and  do  absolutely  all  the  briefing  for,  that  no  matter  how 
much  he  may  adore  the  Muses,  he  has  not  actually  had  time 


PROLOGUE 


during  the  thirteen  years  that  intervene  since  his  happy  es- 
cape from  "Bloomingdale"  to  write  more  than  some  one 
hundred  and  fifty  sonnets. 

The  fact  that  he  had  some  five  hundred  sonnets  in 
stock  emboldened  the  writer  to  announce  the  unprecedented 
undertaking  of  bringing  out  a  Poetical  Quarterly.  Lord 
Byron  intended  to  do  the  same — that  was  the  germ  of  the 
plan  with  the  writer — but  his  untimely  death  prevented. 
The  writer  had  intended  to  limit  the  number  to  twenty-five 
sonnets  per  quarter — half  of  which  were  to  be  new  sonnets 
and  half  taken  from  the  stock  of  some  five  hundred  al- 
ready done.  But  on  Easter  Monday  last,  the  24th  of  April, 
an  event  occurred — alluded  to  in  the  Appendix,  at  its  proper 
place — which  started  apparently  such  an  output  of  sonnets 
that  he  at  once  saw  that  he  must  modify  and  change  the 
original  sonnet-schedule,  so  to  speak.  He  therefore  de- 
cided to  increase  the  number  of  sonnets  each  quarter  to 
fifty,  of  which  as  many  as  desired  should  be  charged  to  the 
new  account  of  sonnets,  and  not  more  than  half  a  dozen 
sonnets  should  be  drawn  upon  from  the  old  stock  of  some 
five  hundred  sonnets,  aforesaid,  already  done,  and  moss- 
grown  with  age,  so  to  speak.  The  consequence  was,  that 
of  the  fifty-three  sonnets  composing  "Scorpio  No.  i"  forty- 
seven  were  done  since  the  24th  of  month-before-last,  or 
within  six  weeks  from  to-day,  the  6th  of  June. 

Said  forty-seven  sonnets  are — with  few  exceptions — 
placed  in  the  order  of  their  birth,  in  "Scorpio  No.  I." 


PROLOGUE 


Concerning  said  sonnets  the  writer  has  only  this  to 
say  in  taking  leave — for  ninety  days — of  the  reviewer. 

If  the  sonnet  was  the  key  with  which  Shakspeare  "un- 
locked his  heart,"  it  is  with  the  writer  the  key  to  the  cup- 
board containing  ointment  to  soothe  the  aches  and  pains 
caused  by  a  life  of  incessant  warfare,  for  nearly  seventeen 
years,  against  crime;  insolent,  barefaced,  buttressed;  strut- 
ting more  brazenly  than  a  painted  "protected"  harlot  on  the 
arm  of  her  "fancy  man" ;  in  which  he  has  been  utterly  un- 
supported by  press,  pulpit,  or  public,  but  NOT  by  the  Law 
Reviewers  aforesaid,  to  whom  he  feels  undying  gratitude. 

Such  being  the  case,  the  writer  goes  to  a  sonnet  for 
comfort  the  moment  his  heart  begins  to  ache,  or  the  instant 
his  brain  begins  to  ache — figuratively  speaking,  this  last — 
over  the  perplexity  of  an  existence  brought  about  by  a  Su- 
preme Being — he  firmly  believes — whose  ways  are  "past 
finding  out."  Hence  the  intimacy  of  so  many  of  the  son- 
nets; hence  their  variety  of  subject,  as  well  as  variety  of 
treatment.  From  grave  to  gay,  from  serious  to  jocose, 
from  sacred  to  profane,  is  the  order  of  the  day  with  the 
writer's  Muse — to  use  a  very  old-fashioned  word. 

The  writer  is  absolutely  and  utterly  alone  in  the  world. 
He  has  not  a  blood  relative  in  the  world  who  has  not 
"flopped"  to  the  side  of  the  upper  dog.  This  is  not  said  in 
a  tone  of  complaint,  but  purely  and  simply — upon  honour — 
by  way  of  explanation  as  touching  the  aforesaid  intimacy 
of  the  sonnets  and  their  tumultous — so  to  speak — variety. 


PROLOGUE 


Before  thrown  into  a  madhouse  cell  for  life  the  writer 
could  not  write  anything — in  prose  or  verse,  in  spite  of  sev- 
eral years  of  steady,  intelligent,  and  most  determined  ef- 
fort— more  effective  than  a  cheque.  A  cheque — if  good — 
is  very  effective — of  course — but  it  is  hardly  literature. 
Upon  being  laid  by  the  heels  upon  a  false,  bogus,  and  per- 
jured, charge  of  insanity,  the  writer  set  about  him  to  im- 
prove his  vocabulary — which  never  had  been  meagre — by 
looking  up  in  "Stormonth's"  Unabridged  Dictionary  the 
origin  of  every  word  that  struck  him,  and  whose  etymology 
was  unfamiliar  to  him.  He  jotted  down  the  date  of  the 
observation  every  time  on  the  margin  of  the  page.  One 
night — a  year  almost  to  a  day — from  the  date  of  his  arrest, 
he  found  a  rhyme  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  practically, 
dancing  in  his  head.  He  smiled  at  it  and  jotted  it  down. 
He  smiled  because  there  was  a  laugh  in  it.  No  sooner  was 
said  laugh  jotted  down  than  another  presented  itself.  To 
cut  a  long  story  short,  half  a  dozen  rhymes  presented 
themselves  to  him  that  night.  All  were  duly  recorded. 
The  next  night  the  same  thing  occurred,  and  the  next  and 
the  next,  until  he  had  written — not  on  the  margin  of  "Stor- 
month's" Unabridged,  however — some  one  thousand 
rhymes.  He  then  started  to  cramp  said  rhymes  which  he 
had  allowed  to  spread  at  will,  to  as  many  as  some  eighteen 
or  twenty  syllables  to  a  line,  into  the  classical  English 
length  of  ten  or  eleven  syllables. 

Said  rhymes  he  had  held  down  to  couplets,  in  ninety 


PROLOGUE 


per  cent,  of  the  cases,  varied  by  triplets,  and  rarely,  qua- 
trains. 

Said  rhymes  had  always  rhymed  closely  no  matter 
how  uncouth,  unwieldly,  or  barbaric,  their  metre. 

Under  said  new  regime,  he  wrote  some  one  thousand 
couplets,  of  the  said  classic  length. 

Once  started,  he  never  deflected  from  said  classic  rule 
in  a  single  instance.  His  barbaric  lines  had  never  been  less 
than  ten  or  eleven  syllables,  though  often  nearly  twice  that 
length. 

One  night  in  August,  1898,  he  felt  a  desire  to  attempt 
to  write  a  sonnet.  He  had  never  attempted,  or  dreampt  of 
attempting  such  a  thing.  He  never  had  any  idea  that  he 
could  do  so  difficult  and  complicated  a  feat  in  verse.  He 
had  contented  himself  with  thinking  of  writing  couplets 
all  his  life — when  the  mood  seized  him.  He  therefore 
went  about  the  task  in  something  strongly  resembling  fear 
and  trembling.  To  his  surprise  he  "pulled  it  off,"  so  to 
speak,  after  about  an  hour's  intense  mental  effort.  That 
sonnet  is  in  "Scorpio  No.  I."  It  is  entitled  "Words- 
worth."  From  that  memorable — to  him — August  night,  to 
the  following  Xmas,  he  wrote  some  fifteen  sonnets — 
among  them  the  sonnets  "Midsummer"  and  "The  Rubicon 
of  the  Unknown."  From  January,  1900,  to  Thanksgiving 
Eve — the  day  of  his  escape — he  wrote  some  three  hundred 
and  thirty-five  sonnets.  So  much  for  how  the  Muse  pre- 
sented herself — to  the  author  of  "Scorpio." 


PROLOGUE 


In  closing,  the  author  begs  leave  to  observe  that  it  was 
with  extreme  reluctance  that  he  withdrew  the  veil  from  the 
matters  touched  upon  in  the  present  Prologue.  The  proof 
of  that  is  in  the  contrast  in  length  and  tone  between  this 
Prologue  and  the  preceding  one.  But  to  avoid  being  bored 
by  reading  possibly  well-meant,  but  highly  officious,  and  as 
highly  dull  suggestions,  touching  the  illegality  of  poetry  in 
an  alleged  free  country — as  hinted  already — when  his  news 
bureaus  send  him  future  clippings — if  there  are  any — the 
author  conceived  it  the  part  of  wisdom  to  stamp  upon  the 
hissing  head  of  the  little  snakes  that  try  to  make  out  that 
thought  is  less  free  in  the  United  States  than  in  Russia.  Fu- 
ture Prologues  he  hopes  may  be  as  care  free  and  debonair 
as  the  Prologue  to  "Scorpio"  itself. 

One  last  item,  and  then  au  revoir. 

There  is  a  certain  series  of  sonnets  within  entitled, 
"The  Rosary." 

Now,  touching  said  "Rosary,"  the  author  has  this  to 
say: 

He  is  no  more  responsible  for  the  sentiments  issuing 
from  the  lips  of  the  "Solitary  of  En-gedi" — in  whose  mouth 
he  puts  said  sonnets,  by  specifically  stating  that  the  series 
is  a  series  of  "Dramatic  Sonnets" — by  which  he  meant  lit- 
tle plays,  little  soliloquies — than  Shakspeare — to  use  a  very 
awful  example,  a  very  awe-inspiring  example — was  charge- 
able with  the  villainy  of  lago. 

6-6-1913. 


PROLOGUE 


June  10,  1913. 

A  word  in  addition — and  just  on  the  very  eve  of  going 
to  press — to  hostiles  in  the  press  both  near  and  far — so  far 
as  Boston  and  so  near  as  Richmond — is  rendered  advisable 
by  two  clippings  from  the  former  city  and  a  newspaper 
from  the  latter,  which  latter  was  published  this  very  day. 
The  falling  from  grace  upon  the  part  of  said  hostiles  con- 
sists in  the  high  crime  and  misdemeanour — when  dealing 
with  a  poem — of  garbling  and  mutilating  the  verse  with  a 
view  to  discredit  it,  or  its  author,  in  public  estimation,  as  a 
poet.  This  is  about  the  most  cowardly  as  well  as  the  dull- 
est, and  meanest  way  of  attacking  a  literary  enemy.  Lack- 
ing the  courage  or  intelligence  to  originate  anything  tell- 
ing or  strong;  the  ingenuity  of  these  little  creatures  is  fo- 
cussed  upon  picking  out — or  rather  creating — flaws  in  the 
verse — which  do  not  otherwise  exist — by  omitting  lines 
which  elucidate  the  lines  the  said  little  creatures  cite;  or 
leaving  out  the  second  and  closing  line  to  a  couplet  in  a 
sonnet. 

In  Boston  the  hostiles  erred  in  the  former  particular. 

In  Richmond  the  hostile  erred  in  the  latter  particular. 

Now,  criticism  of  our  verse  is  the  last  thing  we  would 
avoid — hostile  criticism  is  as  interesting — provided  it  is 
more  or  less  accurate,  true  and  informed — though  far  from 


PROLOGUE 


being  as  pleasant  and  agreeable,  of  course,  as  criticism  which 
is  not  hostile.  But  we  strenuously  object  to  the  action  of 
the  Boston  hostiles  which  implied  that  the  only  reason  we 
got  the  better  of  our  keeper  in  a  life-and-death  struggle  in 
a  cell  in  "Bloomingdale"  falsely  so  called,  was  because  when 
he  attempted  to  strangle  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  the  lat- 
ter's  throat  proved  too  strong  for  him.  It  was  not  alone 
the  strength  of  our  throat  that  saved  our  life  in  said  en- 
counter. Said  result  of  the  hostile's  was  brought  about  by 
suppressing  those  lines,  or  line,  of  the  sonnet  which  con- 
tained the  secret  of  our  victory. 

We  as  strenuously  object  to  the  action  of  the  Rich- 
mond hostile  which  squeezed  the  very  life  out  of  a  sonnet 
called  "Three  Flies,"  published  in  its  issue  of  June  loth, 
1913,  by  leaving  out  the  last  line  of  the  sonnet,  and  ipso 
facto  of  the  couplet. 

There  was  no  possible  question  about  lack  of  space — 
which  evidently  was  the  case  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  New 
York  "World" — evening  edition — which  published  some 
half  dozen  of  our  sonnets,  and  was  forced — from  lack  of 
space  at  the  bottom  of  the  last  column — to  cut  a  sonnet 
down  to  two  quatrains,  or  eight  lines,  instead  of  three 
quatrains,  and  a  closing  couplet,  making  fourteen  lines  in 
all.  Now  there  are  millions  of  people  who  would  be  de- 
lighted to  squeeze  the  life  out  of  three  flies — and  three  mil- 
lion flies — for  that  matter,  if  they  had  the  time  and  accur- 
acy of  "swat."  But  that  is  an  aside,  palpably.  A  poet  has 


PROLOGUE 


a  perfect  right  to  select  any,  not  improper,  topic  on  earth  as 
subject  of  a  sonnet.  And  people  who  are  at  all  widely 
read  know  that  prisoners  in  dungeons  have  time  and  again 
made  friends  of,  and  even  tamed — far  more  dangerous — 
and  therefore  objectionable — creatures  than  flies,  to  wit: 
spiders,  and  rats.  The  bite  of  either  of  which  is  liable — un- 
der given  conditions — to  cause  prompt  and  painful  death. 

Therefore,  why  should  the  author — during  his  long 
and  hideous  imprisonment  in  that  Hell-upon-earth,  a  mad- 
house cell — not  be  permitted  to  find  what  distraction  he 
might  in  the  gay  evolutions  of  three  flies? 

The  cause  of  the  hostility  of  one  of  the  Boston  papers 
is  unknown — possibly  because  the  author  of  "Scorpio" 
likes  the  South — that  of  the  second  is  a  libel  suit. 

The  cause  of  the  hostility  of  the  Richmond  hostile  is 
very  well  known,  but  for  certain  reasons  the  author  does 
not  care  to  drag  it  out  of  its  various  closets.  He  will  do 
so,  promptly,  however,  upon  the  recurrence  of  unfriendly 
acts  by  said  paper. 

Said  paper  has  for  some  time  been  getting  nastier  and 
nastier  in  re  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  in  a  cautious  fashion. 
Thus.  When  the  break  between  said  paper  and  ourselves 
first  began — some  four  years  ago — we  noticed  that  little 
disagreeable  slurs  were  secretively  slipped  into  otherwise 
highly  friendly,  and  prominently  placed — first  page,  top 
line — stories  about  our  various  and  sundry,  more  or  less 
exciting  doings.  Exciting  not  from  choice,  necessarily, 


PROLOGUE 


but  dire  and  grim  necessity — the  Gillard  incident,  for  in- 
stance— cited  in  the  New  York  "Tribune"  article  in  Appen- 
dix. We  approached  the  proper  authorities,  on  the  paper, 
in  no  uncertain  terms,  in  the  premises,  and  a  most  desirable 
and  prompt  reform  was  the  result.  Thereupon,  in  place 
of  getting  good  places  in  the  paper — whenever  the  whirl 
of  Fate's  wheel  brought  up  more  news  re  the  author  of 
"Scorpio" — or  even  decent  places — decent  positions — we 
were  stuck  next  to  the  most  objectionable — as  we  remem- 
ber it — sort  of  advertisements,  such  as  cures,  as  intimate  as 
they  are  disagreeable ;  advertisements  of  female  underwear, 
fully  displayed;  or  other  advertisements  of  the  class  of 
"Rough-on-Rats. " 

We  again,  but  far  more  jocularly — expostulated  with 
the  taste  which  sandwiched  a  man  of  the  austere  tastes  of 
the  author  of  "Scorpio,"  between  cures  for  emerods — and 
— ladies'  drawers — but,  alas!  without  avail. 

We  do  not  court  notice  from  any  newspaper.  Those 
desirous  of  reviewing  "Scorpio  No.  i,"  "No.  2,"  etc.,  etc., 
we  shall  be  very  pleased  indeed  to  hear  from — as  above  de- 
scribed, re  reviewers.  But  we  demand,  in  no  uncertain 
tones,  to  be  let  alone,  when  the  newspaper  notice  is  merely 
intended  as  a  slur  which  is  malicious,  but  just  short  of  an 
action  for  libel. 

Our  motto — originated  by  ourselves — is:  "Leave  Me 
Alone";  which  has  for  crest  the  figure  of  a  grizzly  bear, 
walking  quietly  along. 


PROLOGUE 


This  we  have  had  carved  on  a  large  blood-stone,  by  a 
capable  lapidary,  and  employ  rarely,  but  upon  occasion, 
when  an  unusually  important  envelope  requires  extra  secur- 
ity. 

This  is  to  signify  that  unless  a  party,  or  parties,  is,  or 
are,  desirous  of  trouble,  said  party  or  parties,  leave  us 
alone.  If  they  want  trouble  we  shall  as  readily  accommo- 
date them  as  we  accommodated  said  Gillard.* 

J.  A.  C. 

"The  Merry  Mills," 

Cobham,  Albemarle  Co., 

Virginia, 

June  10,  1913. 


PROLOGUE 


The  "Richmond  Virginian" 

Richmond,  Virginia,  May  SI,  1913 


Ethics  of  New  York  Alienists 

When  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  said  he  was  afraid 
to  trust  himself  in  New  York  State  because  he  believed  all 
the  alienists  there  could  be  bribed  to  send  him  back  to 
Bloomingdale  everybody  thought  he  was  using  the  empty 
words  of  prejudice.  Recent  developments  indicate  that  he 
had  substantial  basis  for  his  opinion.  Dr.  Russell,  official 
alienist  and  keeper  of  the  insane,  seems  to  have  considered 
and  discussed  the  question  of  a  $25,000  bribe  to  release 
Harry  Thaw  with  the  tranquil  philosophy  of  a  business 
man  going  over  a  business  proposition.  He  did  not  knock 
in  the  head  the  person  proposing  that  he  violate  his  official 
and  professional  oath  and  his  obligations  to  the  State  and 
his  own  honor.  He  did  not  even  report  the  case  and  de- 
mand prosecution  of  the  tempter.  His  conduct  was  extra- 
ordinary, to  say  the  least ;  and,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
contrary  and  contradictory  swearing  of  other  eminent  New 
York  insanity  experts,  gives  an  unfortunate  idea  of  the 
ethics  of  that  special  branch  of  medicine  in  that  particular 
locality. 


PROLOGUE 


The  "Journal" 

Syracuse,  New  York,  June  11,  1913 

Encourage  the  Philanthropist 

We  hope  Justice  Giegerich  of  the  Supreme  Court  will 
pass  favorably  upon  the  application  of  John  Armstrong 
Chaloner,  brother  of  Louis  Stuyvesant  Chanler,  for  an  in- 
crease of  his  allowance  from  $17,000  to  $33,000.  It  is  not 
because  we  are  interested  in  exposing  the  family  skeleton, 
for  that  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  request. 

Chaloner  wants  to  benefit  the  State  and  his  use  of  the 
extra  money,  he  declares,  will  be  for  that  purpose.  His  ex- 
perience in  an  asylum  should  qualify  him  to  speak  of  the 
care  of  insane,  and  the  defects  of  present  laws.  He  says 
it  has  and  he  is  determined  to  begin  a  crusade  of  reform  if 
the  court  will  let  him  get  more  of  his  fortune  of  $1,500,000. 
That  is  why  we  particularly  wish  him  well,  for  if  there  is 
room  for  beneficial  legislation  in  existing  law  of  any  nature, 
let's  have  it,  especially  if  some  one  else  is  willing  to  spend 
his  own  money  to  prove  to  the  State  that  he  is  right  in  his 
contentions. 

Such  steps  as  Chaloner  wishes  to  take,  if  they  are  as 
high  minded  as  he  says  they  are,  should  be  encouraged. 


Sonnet  One 


A  Poet-Caravan 

The  sonnet's  lines  are  mark'd  by  skeletons 

The  bleaching  bones  of  poet-caravan 

The  blistering  carcasses  of  earth's  weak  sons 

Who  strive  to  sonnet  and  so  seldom  can. 

As  o'er  her  solemn  plain  doth  rise  the  moon 

And  on  these  bleaching  bones  her  beams  doth  shed 

One  almost  fancies  one  can  hear  a  moan 

A  mutter'd  murmur  from  the  martyr'd  dead. 

The  air  doth  pulsate  with  the  summer's  breath 

And  Nature's  throbbing  heart  the  stillness  holds 

Whilest  the  solemnity  that  ushers  death 

The  spirit  awes  and  all  the  soul  enfolds. 

On  the  horizon  howls  a  shy  jackal 

Th'  Orient's  glamour  thus  is  over  all. 


2  SONNETS 

Sonnet  Two 


"All  the  World's  a  Stage" 

— Shakspeare. 

As  fro'  the  tiny  acorn  springs  the  oak 
'Neath  whose  umbrageous  leaves  and  tow'ring  limbs 
Canopys  the  ox  when  fro'  the  yoke 
Cessation  from  fierce  toil  sweet  sunset  brings : 
So  from  small  cause  springs  mighty  consequence 
And  actions  that  do  ring  the  world  around 
In  chain  of  change  of  close-linked  sequence 
Homogeniously  taut  as  cable  round. 
Thus  work  the  Gods  in  this  our  seething  world 
As  They  gaze  downward  from  their  cloudy  couch 
At  Their  dread  touch  men's  passions'  waves  are  curl'd 
Yet  nought  in  Nature  doth  the  Cause  avouch ! 
Thus  move  men  blindly  in  a  maze  of  chance 
Mere  puppets  on  a  stage,  whom  the  Gods  make  dance. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Three 


The  Life-Dance 

Tis  how  we  tread  said  dance,  close  watcheth  God- 
That  dread  mysterious  Being  from  afar — 
While  all  things  bow  to  Whose  Olympian  nod 
From  falling  sparrow  to  movement  of  a  star. 
In  us  the  heart — from  Him  the  circumstance 
That  doth  each  heart  enshroud  as  graveyard  pall 
'Fining  the  movements  of  said  fateful  dance 
As  an  elastic  mesh  confines  a  ball. 
The  jolts  and  jars,  the  horrid  shocks  and  blows 
The  griefs  and  insults  that  most  souls  do  meet 
Are  motions  measur'd  out  by  One-who-knows 
'Tis  ours  the  task  to  handle  well  our  feet. 
Just  "face  the  music"  and  by  conscience  tread 
And  when  the  music's  fast — don't  lose  your  head. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Four 


A  Magic  Crucible 


The  sonnet  is  a  magic  crucible 

In  which  I  throw  a  thought  and  watch  it  melt. 

Gaze  to  see  to  what  it  is  reducible 

What  are  its  elements — what's  true — what's  felt. 

Within  this  magic  vat — which  molten  seethes 

Bubbles  and  boils  in  waves  of  fiery  heat 

Rising  and  falling  even  as  if  it  breathes 

As  tho'  beneath  their  surface  heart  did  beat — 

Within  this  grim  retort  all  things  are  thrown 

Nations  and  actions — countries,  customs — all 

And  by  its  trying  is  their  nature  known 

The  gold  swift  sift  from  dross,  from  honey  gall. 

So,  in  this  life,  doth  Deity  try  man 

And  as  his  passions  seethe,  his  heart  doth  scan. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Five 


Germania 

(i) 

A  model  for  the  world  is  Germany. 
There  character  and  brains  go  hand  in  hand 
There  patriotism  join'd  to  industry 
Conquer  the  handicap  of  non-fertile  land. 
With  neither  Colonies  nor  vast  domain 
With  neither  mines  nor  riches  in  her  breast 
Her  teeming  merchantmen  plough  every  main 
Her  whirring  factories  do  never  rest. 
And  this  has  all  been  done  in  twenty  years 
In  that  brief  span  Germania  leads  the  world 
Before  that  time  she  lagg'd  behind  her  peers 
Before  that  time  her  commerce'  sails  were  furl'd. 
At  the  Kaiser's  call  Germania's  commerce  strove 
And  sprang  in  air  like  Pallas  from  front  of  Jove ! 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Six 


Germania 

(ii) 

E'en  greater  miracle  than  this  was  seen 

When  her  Emperor  call'd  for  Men-0f-war 

To  challenge  the  empire  of  the  world's  Sea-Queen 

Who  rules  the  waves  from  her  proud  Neptune-car. 

Britannia  smil'd  and  curl'd  her  lip  in  scorn 

Britannia  laugh'd — and  loud  the  welkin  rang! 

When — lo!  like  magic  were  German  "Dreadnoughts"  born 

And  in  deadly  squadrons  on  the  waters  sprang! 

No  laughter  now  is  heard  from  Albion's  shore 

No  sneer  is  now  upon  Britannia's  lip 

But  carking  care  is  there  for  evermore 

Lest  dread  Germania  smite  her  thigh  and  hip. 

By  self-sacrifice  and  debt  was  this  end  won 

A  load  borne  bravely  by  every  Teuton  son. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Seven 


Britannia 

Think  not  from  this  that  I  am  Britain's  foe 

I'd  love  to  see  our  countries  fast  allied! 

But  as  thro'  the  world  I  softly  lonely  go 

All  countrie's  virtues  shall  be  truly  cried. 

My  Muse  is  History  herself  in  verse 

Impartial,  accurate,  high-minded,  true 

It  is  Her  joy  all  good  deeds  to  rehearse 

Her  duty  to  make  rogues  and  rascals  rue. 

Good  actions  are  not  bounded  by  frontiers 

Nor  ideas  bounded  by  a  non-seen  line 

There  never  yet  was  limit  set  for  tears 

Nor  yet  for  suffering  by  any  clime. 

The  world  I  scan  and  measure — then  enhearse 

After  I've  scann'd  and  measur'd  well  my  verse. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Eight 


Columbia 

Some  mighty  lessons  in  these  facts  are  found 
For  my  great  country — that  vast  land  of  wealth 
Where  love  of  country  is  today  foul  drown'd 
In  one  mad  feverish  frenzied  rush  for  pelf. 
Two  battle-ships  a  year  we  may  not  have 
Because,  forsooth,  some  Solons  are  so  mean 
That  all  appropriations  they  must  shave 
To  fat  the  Pension-List — that  hag  obscene ! 
The  wily  Japanese  are  at  our  gate 
These  crafty  Orientals  lust  our  Isles 
'Fore  e'er  we  know  Fate's  voice  will  cry  "Too  late ! 
To  crush  with  cannon  daring  Nippon's  wiles." 
Columbia,  vote  the  warships !  Rise  as  one  man ! 
Let  the  Star  Spangled  Banner  awe  Japan. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Nine 


That  Pension-Lift 

The  foulest  "graft"  in  all  the  world  today 

Is  that  same  Pension-List — so  help  me  G-d! 

That  sounds  strong  but  reverently  it  I  say 

Tis  the  fattest  graft  e'er  sprang  from  any  sod ! 

A  list  that  lengthens  as  the  vet'rans  die 

A  list  that  lifts  itself  by  its  boot-straps 

A  list  that  largely  is  a  living  lie 

A  chopping-block  for  ev'ry  sane  man's  taps ! 

When  will  the  people  rise  and  prick  this  thing — 

This  bubble  blown  by  politicians'  breath 

Which  makes  the  Nations  with  raucous  laughter  ring 

And  makes  the  frugal  patriot  sweat  to  death ! 

An  honest  Pension-List's  a  Nation's  pride 

Not  such  an  one  as  all  men  do  deride. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Ten 


Sans  a  Wedding  Garment 

What  business  is  it  of  the  saucy  Japs — 

These  scheming  bold  marauders  of  the  East — 

If  Columbia  their  greedy  knuckles  raps 

For  coming  uninvited  to  our  feast. 

A  feast  she  spreads  to  all  of  the  white  race 

But  draws  the  line,  perforce,  sharp  on  the  East. 

No  yellow  face  thereat  may  find  a  place 

To  there  intrude  there's  no  pretext,  the  least. 

The  Golden  Slope  is  well  within  her  rights 

And  tho'  Japan  re  land  doth  eke  the  same 

She  talks  of  war,  and  the  drowsy  East  affrights 

With  the  bluster  that  she  throws  into  her  game. 

Let  Japan  cross  swords  with  Columbia,  but  dare — 

And  we'll  blow  these  Orientals  in  the  air. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Eleven 


The  Queen  of  the  Pacific 

That  is  our  destiny  most  manifest! 

With  our  vast  coasts  knit  by  th'  Panama  Canal 

To  shrug  or  doubt  it  is  an  empty  jest 

Untimely  joke — as  ill-starr'd  as  banal. 

In  time  this  Nation's  shipping  will  be  vast — 

— The  market  of  the  world  's  the  teeming  East — 

By  th'  Almighty  have  Columbia's  lines  been  cast! 

For  she's  port  for  peoples  all  from  great  to  least — 

When  that  day  dawns  her  post  strategical 

— With  coaling  stations  i'  th'  then  free  Philippines — 

Makes  her  the  mistress  strong  as  logical 

From  Far  Cathay  to  where  the  Cape  sea  gull  screams ! 

Britannia  clearly  rules  all  other  seas — 

Columbia  the  Pacific,  if  you  please. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twelve 


The  Fountain  of  a  Hundred  Jets 

That  is  this  Nation's  nationality ! 

In  us  the  fountains  of  the  world  find  play 

Pouring  their  talent,  sinew,  quality 

Into  one  dazzling  iridescent  ray. 

A  hundred  faucets  this  magic  fountain  boasts 

A  hundred  different  jets  of  ray  intense 

Playing  on  Columbia's  mounts,  plains,  valleys,  coasts 

A  fecundating  spray — rich  as  immense ! 

"The  Promised  Land"  for  all  the  world  are  we 

— For  whom  their  own  home  has  too  narrow  grown — 

They  bring  with  them  their  storied  history, 

The  legends  of  their  land  we  make  our  own ! 

A  mighty  future  for  my  race  I  see 

Once  it  o'ercomes  its  present  crudity. 


SONNETS  13 


Sonnet  Thirteen 


Salut  Aux  Aieux* 

(To  Ancestors.) 

Not  Anglo-Saxon  I  but  Anglo-Celt — 

— A  Welshman  I  would  have  you  understand — 

In  seventeen  ten  my  forbears  "trekk'd  the  veldt"— 

The  rolling  "roaring  forties" — and  made  land. 

Good  Anglo-Saxon  blood  runs  in  my  veins 

And  good  hot  Scotch  and  good  Scotch-Irish  too 

My  genealogy  here  clear  explains 

That  the  British  lion  "quarter'd"  springs  in  view. 

In  view  now  dance  the  lilies  of  fair  France 

— Charlotte  de  Corday's  relative  am  I ! 

O'er  Time's  horizon  then  doth  grim  advance 

An  ancestor  from  thoughtful  Germany. 

Bold  Peter  Stuyvesant  too  speaks  thro'  me 

So  in  me  eight  nationalities  you  see. 


14  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Fourteen 


An  Echo  to  Walt  Whitman's  "Barbaric  Yawp" 

Bold  old  Walt  Whitman !  Good  galumphing  Walt ! 
As  dry-nurse  took  I  thee  in  poesy ! 
Not  for  melody — for  thy  brave  verse  doth  halt 
And  sans  rhyme  or  rhythm  doth  its  grim  weird  dree, 
i  But  for  freedom — first — of  all  God's  gifts  most  fair — 
The  freedom  of  eagles  when  they  soar  for  prey 
— Columbia's  eagle  monarch  of  the  air! 
In  following  thee  their  flight  did  I  essay. 
Rugged  as  granite  with  a  heart  as  soft 
As  ever  casketed  fair  woman's  breast 
From  carpenter's  bench  thy  thoughts  soar'd  aloft 
Till  thy  name  belts  the  world  North,  South,  East,  and  West ! 
For  freedom  of  thought  took  I  thee  sans  peer! 
As  master  of  melody  follow'd  Shakspeare. 


SONNETS  15 


Sonnet  Fifteen 


The  Tricolore 

Mathematics — Poetry — Philosophy. 
Pythagoras — Homer — Aristotle. 
"The  dark  backward  and  abysm  of  time." 

— Shakspeare. 

Now  by  sines  and  cosines,  tangents  and  cotangs ! 

As  my  collegiate  feats  I  now  cull  o'er 

A  rosy  auriole  o'er  th'  dark  backward  hangs 

And  youth  gleams  glorious  as  the  Tricolore ! 

The  fairy  glamour  o'  the  Grecian  Isles 

That  land  of  heroes  and  old  poesie 

The  strident  roar  of  nowadays  beguiles 

And  steeps  our  garish  day  in  tints  all  rosy. 

Those  joyous  marchings  onwards  towards  a  goal 

As  vague — indefinite  as  'twas  remote 

E'er  dread  Experience  had  seared  the  soul 

And  show'd  most  sunny  sunbeams  float  a  mote.  i 

Said  sweet  experience  I  now  gaze  upon 

And  with  fresh  courage  buckle  my  armour  on. 


16  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Sixteen 


The  Watch-Towers  of  Liberty* 

Ye  watch-towers  of  Liberty — the  Press 

A  subject  for  debate  do  I  now  raise 

And  its  solution  upon  you  urgent  press 

For  than  me  the  press  no  one  doth  louder  praise. 

'Tis  'gainst  your  custom — universal  wide — 

That  when  a  rival  doth  any  one  commend 

At  once !  Change !  Presto !  Each  doth  that  one  deride 

And  'gainst  him  lightemngs-fnlininant  are  penn'd! 

This  is  not  just,  nor  right  nor  generous 

This  is  not  worthy  of  your  mighty  sphere 

At  times  the  habit  waxeth  murderous — 

See  Philada.  "Inquirer's"  vile  lying  jeer. 

Please  note.    This  is  no  lecture,  gentle  Sirs 

Merely  suggestion  which  to  my  mind  occurs. 


SONNETS  17 


Sonnet  Seventeen 


The  Syracuse  "Foil-Standard"  Orf* 

The  standard  oil  doth  drip  into  thy  ink ! 

And  honest  printer's  ink  is  foul'd  thereby 

And  facts  within  thy  columns  made  to  blink 

And  Truth  assume  the  vestments  of  a  lie. 

Are  your  presses  oil'd  with  oil  from  Standard  Oil  ? 

Your  "Linotypes"  with  Standard  Oil  kept  trim, 

Do  your  rollers  roll  and  give  the  right  recoil 

And  all  your  wheels  revolve  their  whirring  hymn  ? 

If  not,  why  hot  dost  thou  attack  my  verse 

And  hand  my  sonnets  over  to  the  "Sun"  ? 

Because  Rockefeller's  crimes  I  true  rehearse 

And  show  how  the  score  'gainst  that  rogue  doth  uprun? 

May  the  ghost  of  Horace  Greely  haunt  your  chair 

And  make  you  of  foul  prejudice  beware. 


i8  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Eighteen 

The  Whipping  PoSt 

Houston,  Texas,  "Post,"  May  25,  1913. 

"  'Scorpio'  is  a  book  of  sonnets  'with  a  punch.'  Written  by  John 
Armstrong  Chaloner,  the  man  who  is  crazy  in  New  York  and  sane  in 
Virginia.  .  .  .  While  Mr.  Chaloner's  book  was  published  six  years 
ago,  it  has  just  been  sent  out  for  review.  Mr.  Chaloner  has  a  million 
dollars,  and,  of  course,  could  not  speak  freely  until  he  had  legally  safe- 
guarded his  million  from  the  vengeful  rapacity  of  those  whom  his 
verses  might  offend." 

Our  attention  's  just  been  call'd  to  th'  Houston  "Post" — 

— A  "patent-insides"  sheet  of  Houston,  Tex. — 

Because  "Scorpio"  it  seems — doth  rascals  "roast" 

Said  fact  said  little  "cross-roads-sheet"  doth  vex. 

In  a  State  like  Texas  which  is  part  made  up 

Of  citizens  who  've  fled  from  other  climes 

For  fear  lest  they  might  be  short-shrift  "strung-up" 

In  expiation  of  their  sundry  crimes 

It  is  but  natural  her  libel  laws 

Should  be  about  the  very  worst  on  earth 

And  render  liable  to  th'  law's  grim  claws 

The  writer  who  rich  rascals  doth  un-earth. 

In  the  Old  Do.*  and  the  "Old  North"f  where  we  roam 

The  truth  is  never  libel — in  our  sweet  home ! 


*The  "Old  Dominion"  (Virginia). 

f'The  Old  North  State"  (North  Carolina). 


SONNETS  19 


Sonnet  Nineteen 


A  Panel-House 

The  Watch-Towers  of  Liberty — the  Press — 

Those  mighty  bulwarks  against  tyranny — 

Whose  power  for  good  doth  all  men  deep  impress 

Some  outposts  have  that  won't  stand  scrutiny. 

Instead  of  Watch-Towers  these  things  are  "dead-falls"- 

Oubliette-dungeons  of  a  panel-house! 

To  sweep  whom  the  besom  of  destruction  calls 

As  loudly  's  cleanliness  against  a  louse ! 

By  nature  these  are  grinders  of  the  poor 

By  nature  these  are  toadies  to  the  rich 

And  to  tyranny  and  crime  push  wide  the  door 

And  for  furtive  murder  have  an  eager  itch. 

Such  an  one  is  the  "Times"  of  Brockton,  Mass. 

In  Shoetown  did  said  dark  crime  come  to  pass. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twenty 


The  FirSt  Hewing  of  the  World's  Pioneers 

The  Anglo-Saxon  weapon  is  the  axe. 
It  hewed  the  Crescent  down  on  the  plain  of  Tours 
When  the  Crescent's  tide  o'erwhelming  seem'd  to  wax 
And  the  prospects  of  the  Cross  were  looking  dour. 
But  that  mighty  hero,  mighty  Charles  Martel 
Drawing  his  hammer  call'd  on  his  Saxon  bands 
Whose  bearded  throats  then  push'd  forth  their  battle-yell 
And  gleaming  axes  wav'd  in  brawny  hands. 
The  dauntless  Saracens  they  fell  upon 
As  furious  wild  boar  on  encircling  hounds 
After  fearful  combat  was  that  wild  day  won 
And  the  Crescent  push'd  forever  to  her  bounds 
Than  Saxon  courage  greater  ne'er  was  seen 
Christianity  this  day  it  saved,  I  ween. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twenty-one 


Shaw  Once  More  * 

Tis  an  axe  I  use  when  I  go  after  Shaw 

When  I  go  after  him  to  shore  him  up, 

Shut  up  's  pish-tush,  pooh-pooh,  tut-tut's  hoarse  haw-haw 

And  render  him  as  harmless  as  a  tup. 

For  I  Shaw's  master  am — he  is  my  ram 

My  lusty,  reeking  ram,  and  sturdy  tup 

Shaw  will  deny  this  and  attempt  "flim-flam" 

He  always  "flim-flams"  when  in  hole  he's  stuck. 

But  he  is  my  ram  and  I  do  prize  him  high — 

As  ram  I  prize  him  and  against  him  fence — 

I  use  him  to  "stand"  for  "Humbug"  and  "The  Lie" 

My  two  fat  ewes — in  a  poetic  sense. 

'Tis  an  axe  I  use  when  I  go  after  Shaw 

Against  his  hide  aught  else  would  be  but  straw. 


22  SONNETS 

Sonnet  Twenty-two 


Shaw  Macaw 

The  degradation  of  the  English  taste 

In  things  dramatic  doth  bulk  large  today. 

Her  drama,  in  ideas,  is  a  dreary  waste 

Bar  two  or  three  who  can  really  write  a  play. 

The  proof  of  her  degeneracy  is  Shaw — 

That  Irish  upstart  and  adventurer 

That  literary  parvenu — shrill  macaw — 

Art's  broken  pawnbroker — spent  usurer. 

To  waste  their  shillings  on  this  purblind  guide 

Under  whose  lead  Truth  falls  into  a  ditch 

Whose  object  is  all  high  things  to  deride 

And  who  for  lying  hath  a  lecherous  itch 

To  "blow  their  money  in"  on  such  a  "bum" 

Maketh  the  Nations  with  genial  laughter  hum. 


SONNETS  23 


Sonnet  Twenty-three 


"The  Shaving  of  Shag  Pat'" 

— George  Meredith. 

'Gainst  Shag  "Pat"  Shaw  take  I  the  field  once  more — 

The  tail  of  "Scorpio"  begins  to  swish — 

In  that  "bum"  dramatist  and  bloody  bore 

To  plant  its  sting  the  Zodiac  doth  wish. 

To  be  quite  frank  Shaw  is  its  chopping-block 

Its  "easy-mark"  and  "good-thing-to-push  along" 

"Pat"  Shaw,  whose  "bum"  dramas  are  but  poppy-cock 

And  hypocracy,  mendacity,  stink  strong. 

The  Shaviad  of  Shag  "Pat"  Shaw  this  starts— 

O'  my  fights  with  smug  Pat  Shaw  the  Iliad — 

Divided  up  in  Books,  Cantos,  Stanzas — parts 

Wherein  Shaw  "takes  the  count" — this  Shaviad. 

By  "Scorpio"  Pat  Shaw  will  be  "rant" 

This  brazen  "zingeur"  will  be  bien  plante! 


24  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twenty-four 


A  Prince  of  Liars 


A  titled  liar  is  Sir  Sidney  Lee! 

As  ponderous  and  pompous  as  he's  bland. 

Tall  t'honours  o'  th'  liar  entitl'd  's  he ! 

He's  the  first  and  foremost  liar  in  the  land ! 

Bar  only  one — the  Liar-Paramount — 

The  King  of  Liars — the  Great  Non-Pareil! 

Whose  inspiration  doth  upward  ever  mount 

From  the  Bottomless  Pit  with  the  stench  of  Hell ! 

As  foul  Falstaff  hack'd  and  stabb'd  bold  Hotspur's  corse 

And  lied  about  it  to  make  capital 

So  Lee  re  great  King  Edward  lied  in  due  course 

Him  of  treason  I  attaint !     Crime  capital. 

"The  Peace-Maker"  is  King  Edward's  title  grand 

L'Entente  Cordiale  sprang  from  his  kingly  hand ! 


SONNETS  25 


Sonnet  Twenty-five 

Tolstoy 

MAZEPPA. 

"Bring  forth  the  horse! — the  horse  was  brought; 
In  truth,  he  was  a  noble  steed, 
A  Tartar  of  the  Ukraine  breed, 
Who  look  d  as  though  the  speed  of  thought 
Were  in  his  limbs;  but  he  was  wild, 
Wild  as  the  wild  deer,  and  untaught, 
With  spur  and  bridle  undefiled — 
'Twas  but  a  day  he  had  been  caught; 
And  snorting,  with  erected  mane, 
And  struggling  fiercely,  but  in  vain, 
In  the  full  foam  of  wrath  and  dread 
To  me  the  desert-born  was  led." 

— Lord  Byron. 

Tolstoy  was  a  doomed  Tartar  Dookobar — 

Doom'd  for  all  time  midst  fanatics  fell  to  shine — 

His  logic  unworthy  e'en  a  hip-hurrah — 

Not  worth  "three  hooraws"  I  do  deep  opine. 

A  Kalmuck  Tartar  of  the  Ukraine  breed 

Wild  as  "Mazeppa's"  horse — great  Byron  sang — 

'Gainst  aught  of  beauty  his  voice  was  but  a  screed 

'Gainst  aught  of  nature  it  coarse,  hoarse,  raucous  rang! 

O'  th'  beauty  o'  the  lillies  nought  he  knew — 

"The  lillies  of  the  field"  that  Christ  did  paint 

And  with  His  magic  touch  their  portrait  drew 

To  forever  upward  cheer  the  heart  world-faint ! 

As  novelist  he  the  artist  beautiful ! 

But  interpreter  of  Christ  most  pitiful. 


26  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twenty-six 


Maeterlinck 

or 

John  O'  Dreams 

Good  Maeterlinck  I  would  that  thou  couldst  think. 

If  thou  couldst  think  thou  wouldst  be  truly  great 

"Pis  lack  of  thought  that  makes  thy  logic  blink 

— To  be  thus  frank  believe  me  do  I  hate. 

But  'tis  my  duty  to  unmask  the  fraud 

Humbugs  and  fakirs  which  bestride  the  world 

And  at  the  same  time  struggling  virtue  laud 

That  crafty  humbugs  are  fell  Hellwards  hurl'd. 

Remember  I  as  lawyer  long  am  train'd 

To  think  i'  th'  cold  deadly  logic  o'  th'  Law 

With  eye  long  train'd  to  pierce  a  thing  that's  "framed' 

To  wither  sophistry  and  uproot  flaw. 

As  dreamer  thou  stand'st  first  in  thine  own  class 

As  dreamer  no  man  e'er  did  thee  surpass. 


SONNETS  27 


Sonnet  Twenty-seven 


G.  K.  Chefterton 

The  biggest  bag  of  wind  in  England  is 

Beyond  all  question  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

The  roundest,  plumpest,  fattest,  bumptious-phiz 

And  longest  lethal  bore  is — "Chesty" — One! 

You  bluff  and  "fiddle,"  "side-step,"  back  and  fill 

You  "thimble-rig"  and  "flim-flam"  with  your  pen 

Attempt  to  palm  off  wholesome  things  as  ill 

Whilst  for  ill-things  dost  thou  loudly  "bark"  to  men. 

In  fact  you  simply  stand  upon  your  head 

And  whirl  and  caper  with  your  feet  in  air 

For  G — d's  sake,  Chesterton,  these  follies  shed 

And  play  the  game  you  can  play  bold  and  fair ! 

A  brilliant  mind  at  present  runs  amuck 

Reform !     Be  Robin  Hood  not  Friar  Tuck. 


28  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Twenty-eight 


Canny  Andy 


"I  hadna  been  in  the  town  five  hours  before  bang,  went  a  sax- 
punce !" 

(A  Scotsman's  letter  home  from  London.) 

There's  a  saxpunce  soon  that  's  going  to  go  "bang" 

There's  a  Scotchman  soon  that  's  going  to  "sweat  blood" 

From  all  his  pores  with  almost  mortal  pang ! 

Then  grunt  and  growl  and  chew  a  bitter  cud. 

The  veil  from  off  that  income  will  be  lift 

"The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho"  will  be  solv'd 

By  Uncle  Sam  those  "billets"  will  be  sift 

And  by  him  those  vast  rolling  mills  revolv'd. 

Now,  "Sandy"  loves  a  saxpunce  unco  weel 

And  "Sandy"  hates  to  "give  up"  unco  bad 

So  from  stocky  little  "Sandy"  '11  come  a  "squeal" 

When  the  income  tax  assessor's  day's  been  had! 

But  of  all  the  Sons  of  Mammon  Sandy's  King. 

He  gives  up  most — is  honest — this  I  sing. 


SONNETS  29 


Sonnet  Twenty-nine 


Bloodthirsty! 


I  know  a  warrior — a  son  of  Mars 

Whose  red  right  eye  spouts  blood  in  dark  fierce  jets! 

And  when  this  fighter  doth  entrain  for  wars 

The  "wise  guy"  'gainst  the  other  side  swift  bets. 

The  "wise  guy"  hies  him  to  a  bookmaker 

And  gasps  in  stifl'd  accents  "I'll  lay  odds !" 

The  bookmaker,  aghast,  exclaims,  "No  taker!" 

Tho  't  sounds  like  gift  direct  from  friendly  gods. 

Knowing  said  man  I  know  my  country's  safe 

Both  from  invasion  and  from  dread  defeat 

Per  him  the  strongest  foe  would  be  a  waif 

Which  with  Goliath  did  by  fell  fortune  meet. 

At  threat  of  war  this  hero  did  resign 

Because — magnanimous — none  by  him  might  shine. 


30  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Thirty 


A  Box  of  Kittens 

The  kittens  have  begun  to  straddle  'round 

The  cunning  creatures  with  their  tails  in  air ! 

As  stiff  as  ram-rod,  like  the  "stern"  of  hound 

Or  pointer  which  the  woodcock's  scent  doth  fiaire. 

Their  weak  hind-quarters  totter  as  they  go 

Their  little  paws  spread  out  and  clutch  the  floor 

Their  pace  is  cautious  and  exceeding  slow 

With  nose  to  ground  as  tho'  they  track'd  a  "spoor." 

No  sound  from  out  their  little  frames  doth  come — 

They're  too  concentred  on  th'  aforesaid  aim — 

The  only  sound  's  their  mother's  purring  hum 

As  towards  her  young  her  watchful  glance  doth  aim. 

No  cat  was  ever  "catty"  unto  me. 

I'm  fond  of  cats.     Cats  little  lions  be. 


SONNETS  31 


Sonnet  Thirty-one 


Jezebel 


A  lady  now  I  paint — a  Jezebel 

A  rakish  creature  with  a  cocotte's  face — 

An  English  woman — but  no  names  I  tell — 

Whose  novels  starkly  are  a  black  disgrace. 

The  apostle,  she,  of  sly  adultery 

Of  smug  licentiousness  in  married  guise 

And  all  the  subterfuge — skullduggery 

That  drapes  its  nakedness  from  public  eyes. 

Talent  she  hath  but  'tis  lascivious — 

Her  soul  did  Kipling  draw  in  his  "Vampire"- 

Of  heart  or  conscience  all  oblivious 

To  cash  and  conquest  doth  she  sole  aspire. 

To  limn  this  lady  almost  makes  me  blush. 

Now  as  to  who  she  is,  just  one  word — hush. 


32  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Thirty-two 


The  Turkey  Trot 


Vulgarity,  debauchery,  hand  in  hand 

Now  whirl  their  way  down  Gotham's  gilded  halls. 

The  spectacle  so  shocks  it  makes  us  stand 

At  gaze  in  horror!     So  the  sight  appals! 

Debauched  cads  enticing  maidens  on 

To  "trot"  and  "hug"  in  most  unseemly  maze 

And  all  the  meretricious  airs  to  don 

That  meet  the  Cabaret's  licentious  gaze ! 

To  writhe  and  squirm  and  wriggle  turn  and  twist 

To  faint  and  languish  in  their  partner's  grasp 

T'  obey  the  guidance  of  an  amorous  wrist 

As  hip  to  hip  their  yielding  forms  they  clasp ! 

This  sight  in  New  York  's  seen  'most  any  day 

"Hip!     Hip!     Hooraw!"     It  makes  the  demons  say. 


SONNETS  33 


Sonnet  Thirty- three 


Solitude 

If  'twixt  my  lips  sonnets  tumultuous  pour 

Like  molten  lava  down  Vesuvius'  side 

Therein  are  wither'd  up  fool,  rogue  or  bore 

Thereby  hypocrisy  is  scarified. 

My  verse  compose  I  as  I  ride  along 

In  silent  reverie  on  men  and  things 

On  horse-back  thus  is  born  my  fighting-song 

From  the  saddle  doth  my  Muse  strong  spread  her  wings. 

As  thro'  the  forest  I  do  slowly  ride — 

These  dear  Virginia  woods  that  I  love  so — 

My  verse  oft  paces  with  my  horse's  stride 

And  thus  in  unison  we  silent  go. 

No  poet  e'er  did  love  sweet  Nature  more 

Nor  hotter  hated  liar,  knave  or  bore. 


34  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Thirty-four 


"  The  Heart  is  Deceitful  above  all  things  and 
Desperately  Wicked" 

— Jeremiah. 

I'm  the  only  man  who  knows  how  bad  men  are 
— Bar  popular  confessor  i'  th'  Romish  Church — 
My  kind  family  imprison'd  me  "for  fair" — 
Hop'd  they  left  me  had  forever  in  the  lurch. 
No  better  blood  than  theirs  i'  th'  land  is  found 
More  expensive  education  none  e'er  had 
Touching  travel  they  have  been  the  wide  world  round 
Yet  in  spite  of  this  their  record's  very  bad. 
Two  of  my  brothers  'gainst  me  perjurd  deep 
Swore  to  a  lie — "railroaded"  me  to  gaol. 
At  freedom  ne'er  should  I  have  had  a  peep 
Had  I  not  ta'en  "French  leave" — taken  "leg-bail." 
The  heart  of  man's  as  desperate  today 
As  when  Jeremiah  his  dark  words  did  say. 


SONNETS  35 


Sonnet  Thirty-five 


"The  Love  of  Money  is  the  Root  of  All  Evil" 

But  lust  for  lucre  and  a  rankling  spite 

Which  they  had  nurs'd  'gainst  me  for  many  years 

Their  feeble  principle  o'erbalanc'd  quite 

And  made  them  prison  risk  with  all  its  .fears. 

My  million  and  a  half  quite  turn'd  their  brain 

They  lusted  for  it  with  a  miser's  lust 

Tho'  all  and  several  had  about  the  same 

Each  and  all  decided  my  gold  have  they  must. 

So  as  black  a  plot  as  e'er  in  brain  of  man 

Did  germinate,  gestate,  and  final  rise 

My  family  did  plot — and  plotting  plan 

As  shrewd  a  plot  as  e'er  did  fright  men's  eyes. 

Thus  love  and  hate  conjoin'd  combatted  me 

'Twas  love  of  gold,  and  hate  of  me,  you  see. 


36  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Thirty-six 


My  Parents 


No  grander  Parents  e'er  did  have  a  man 

Than  my  sweet  Mother  and  my  Father  stern. 

A  Roman  he,  built  on  the  antique  plan 

That  with  justice  treats  the  wrongs  one  doth  discern 

With  justice  which  sweet  mercy  tempereth 

A  justice  which  is  tinged  deep  with  love 

And  o'er  his  offspring's  budding  passions  hov'reth 

With  a  constancy  nought  earthly  can  remove. 

Religion  in  these  two  was  vital  breath 

Where  practice  joined  hand  in  hand  with  creed 

Turning  dark  death  into  a  victor's  wreath 

The  laurel  that  doth  crown  the  warrior's  meed! 

Thus  birth,  wealth,  training,  and  rich  learning's  use 

Shower'd  on  their  children  from  hand  profuse. 


SONNETS  37 


Sonnet  Thirty-seven 


They  Are  Seven 


With  seven  brothers  and  sisters  am  I  curst. 
My  juniors,  they,  and  all  are  fair  to  see. 
In  them  doth  beauty  make  of  mask  the  worst 
That  e'er  in  noble  guise  hid  treachery. 
The  women  charming  as  the  men  are  brave 
— Two  have  brave  records  in  the  Spanish  war- 
With  charm  which  the  beholder  soft  doth  lave 
As  cooling  unguents  o'er  a  burning  scar. 
Yet  these  lovely  ladies  left  me  to  dry-rot 
Linger  and  perish  in  a  noisome  cell 
And  yet  these  warlike  brothers  blood  forgot 
And  doomed  me  untried  to  a  living  Hell ! 
Three  ladies  and  four  gentlemen  's  the  roll 
Their  record's  knell  do  I  now  slowly  toll. 


4O2C.32 


SOXXETS 


Sonnet  Thirty-eight 


Midnight* 


The  thunder  mutters  fitfully  o'erhead. 

The  sulphurous  air  comes  heavy  to  the  lungs 

Anon  a  sheet  o'  summer  lightning's  shed, 

Anon,  the  muttering  strengthens  into  booms. 

The  rain  has  ceased.     Merely  a  Death- Watch  drop 

Falls  tickingly  from  the  eaves  to  th'  metall'd  roof 

Below,  porch-covering.     Hist!     The  Death-Ticks  stop! 

Drowned  in  a  flood  of  rain  resonant  as  hoof  • 

Of  Fairy  charger  galloping  a-main! 

Again,  as  't  came,  the  rain  ceases  suddenly. 

From  the  field  a  cricket's  monotone  refrain — 

Silvery  sleigh-bell  tinkle — throbs  bubblingly. 

So  sharp  ring  the  changes  on  Life's  deep-toned  Bells 

Now  mad  peals  of  Joy  or  Victory — now  knells. 


SONNETS  39 


Sonnet  Thirty-nine 


A  Call  * 


Think  not  because  I  see  the  Sin  and  Shame 
Of  this  distracted  mercenary  Age, 
Think  not  because  that  I  can  villains  blame 
And  cause  black  rascals  to  grow  white  wi'  rage 
Think  not  because  of  this  I  cannot  see — 
And  what  is  deeper  feel  to  my  heart's  core — 
The  worthy  struggling  in  Oppression's  Sea — 
Hear  their  death-cries  rise  o'er  Her  murderous  roar! 
'Tis  because  that  them  labouring  brave  I  see 
Grim-mute,  or  Indian  death-yells  dire  I  hear 
Their  brave  stedfast  purpose  strikes  my  sympathy, 
Their  cry  "How  long!"  hath  come  unto  my  ear. 
Reserve  your  strength !     Sagaciously  strive  on ! 
Wait — not  too  long — in  me  you've  wary  champion. 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Forty 


Wordsworth* 


The  clang  o'  Shakspeare  Wordsworth  's  on  your  tongue ! 

The  brazen  clang,  the  thunderous  clang  o'  war! 

Anon  the  mystic  witchery  o'  th'  rune 

As  dim  as  Autumn  mists  steals  lazily  o'er 

The  chords.     Anon  the  Prophet — chant  o'  th'  Seer 

Rises,  floats,  falls  majestically  adown 

The  caverns  dark  mysterious  o'  th'  weird 

Th'  unknown,  the  sinister,  the  beautiful  mound 

Of  Thought— the  Mind.     The  Mind!     That  link  atween 

The  visible  and  th'  invisible.     The  chain 

Binding  willing  and  unwilling  to  Th'  Unseen! 

Faith  or  Doubt  to  break  these  fetters — all  is  vain. 

To  pierce  or  steal  their  secrets  which  bewilder 

Was  placed  beyond  our  reach  by  The  Mound-Builder. 


SONNETS  4i 


Sonnet  Forty-one 


The  Rubicon  of  the  Unknown 

A  wanderer,  pale,  ragged,  haggard,  forlorn 

But  buoyed  by  a  courage  greater  far 

Than  e'er  grasp'd  sword — e'en  tho'  of  Hope  all  bare-shorn — 

For  o'er  his  heart  Despair  shone  as  icy  star — 

Unarmed,  struck  with  his  fist  th'  embattled  Door 

Of  Paradise!     A  Voice,  whence  unknown,  smote  th'  ear 

"Mean  ruffian  what  dare  make  you  here!     Before 

These  Gates !  Before  this  Door !  What  make  you  here!" 

"I  make  a  venture.     Pray  Unknown  Voice,  say  on." 

"Mortal,  surely  you  wot  not  what  you  do!" 

"True.     And  care  not  what  I  do — so  something's  done ! 

All     earth's     draughts     have    I    quaffed — Her    pleasures 

plummed  to 

The  bottom.     Nought's  left  to  me  but  Th'  Unknown. 
For  me  nought's  left  but — cross  Th'  Unknown's  rubicon!" 


42  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Forty-two 


There  is  a  Tide 


"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men 
Which  taken  at  the  flood  leads  on  to  fortune. 
Omitted— all  the  voyage  of  their  lives 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries." 

— Shakspeare. 

This  tide  I  took,  and  it  did  carry  me 

Beyond  the  furthest  bourne  of  past  emprize 

Beyond  the  dimmest  reach  of  poesy 

Beyond  Imagination's  piercing  eyes. 

And  what  did  I  bring  back  from  that  far  land 

The  Heart  of  Nature  and  the  Throne  of  Time, 

Whose  waves  crisp  dreamily  along  its  strand 

Beat  without  sound  in  this  still  mystic  clime? 

That  Nature  more  mysterious  is  by  far! 

Than  sage  e'er  guessed  or  poet  even  dreamed 

That  Truth  gleams  distant  from  us  as  a  star 

Of  which  the  first  faint  rays  have  scarcely  beamed ! 

Or  soon  or  late  all  reach  this  distant  shore. 

So  Conscience  be  the  guide — for  evermore! 


NOTE. — "So"  is  here  used  in  the  sense  "provided  that." 


SONNETS  43 


Sonnet  Forty-three 


"Le  Noir  Faineant" 

or 

After  the  Tournament 

On  his  snow-white  battle  charger  fierce  "Mesrour" 
Follow'd  by  his  plump  of  spears  he  rode  away — 
His  Free  Companions  tried — of  aspect  dour 
Scorners  of  death  whom  nothing  can  dismay 
With  such  men  at  his  back  he  welcomes  strife 
Its  din  rings  in  his  ears  as  sweet  as  song 
Tinting  the  dark  monotony  of  life 
To  a  symphony  whose  chords  rise  rich  as  strong! 
For  them  that  frowning  horde  o'  th'  wielders  o'  th'  pen- 
Hostile  Critic — Journalists — is  wholesome  meat! 
Thro'  their  vast  numbers  ride  these  trained  men 
Carving  at  will — to  right  and  left — "Defeat" 
On  "Mesrour"  the  horse  of  death  the  steed  of  doom 
He  forced  a  world  in  arms  to  give  him  room. 


44  SONNETS 


Group  of  Six  Dramatic  Sonnets  Entitled 

THE  ROSARY* 

Written  For  Those  In  Great  Tribulation,  To  Whom  Resignation  Has 
Not  Yet  Come. 

First  Samuel,  23  and  29:  "And  David  went  up  from  thence,  and 
dwelt  in  strongholds  at  En-gedi." 
.     24  and  i:  .  .  .  .  "In  the  wilderness  of  En^gedi." 

Ecclesiastes,  4:1-2-3:  "So  I  returned,  and  considered  all  the  op- 
pressions that  are  done  under  the  sun:  and  behold  the  tears  of  such  as 
were  oppressed,  and  they  had  no  comforter;  and  on  the  side  of  their 
oppressors  there  was  power;  but  they  had  no  comforter. 

Wherefore  I  praised  the  dead  which  are  already  dead  more  than 
the  living  which  are  yet  alive. 

Yea,  better  is  he  than  both  they,  which  hath  not  yet  been,  who 
hath  not  seen  the  evil  work  that  is  done  under  the  sun." 

Book  of  Job,  38  and  5:  "Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man — and 
answer  thou  me."* 

— God  to  Job. 


*Hebrew  "make  me  know." 


SONNETS  45 


Sonnet  Forty-four 


The  Rosary 

(i) 

(The  Solitary  of  En-gedi  loquitur.) 
"Jehovah  Jah  a  studious  word  with  Thee 
I've  served  Thee  now  for  lo!    full  fifty  years 
During  which  time  all  cause  for  joy  and  glee 
Hath  been  foul  swamped  in  full  cause  for  tears. 
My  patience  now  doth  draw  unto  an  end 
And  logic  saith  'The  Almighty  hath  "gone  back."  ' 
So  you  and  I  now  part,  mine  august  Friend, 
Until  You've  proven  that  Thou  canst  'come  back.' 
'So  mote  it  be !'  And  Heaven  speed  the  day ! 
When  God  Almighty  once  more  gets  His  grip. 
On  that  grand  day  I'll  raise  a  roundelay 
And  shout  Hosannas  from  tumultuous  lip. 
Here's  strength  to  God  Almighty's  outstretch'd  arm 
May  it  soon  be  strong  enough  to  save  from  harm !" 


SONNETS 


Sonnet  Forty-five 


The  Rosary 

(ii)' 

"If  I  can  help  Thee,  simply  say  the  word 

In  aught  that  man  can  do  I'll  rend  Thee  aid 

If  You'll  supply  the  troops  I'll  draw  the  sword 

For  of  blood-letting  I'm  not  the  least  afraid. 

That  You  need  help  is  long  beyond  all  talk 

For  nothing  canst  Thou  do  without  vile  man. 

Ask  You  to  do  a  thing  sans  man's  help,  You  balk. 

I've  frequent  tried — and  don't  believe  You  can. 

There's  something  rotten  in  great  Denmark's  State 

There's  something  wrong  about  the  'Great  White  Throne' 

Satan  caught  You  napping — You  got  up  too  late 

And  so  'lost  out'  and  so  can't  stand  alone. 

Now  to  beat  the  Devil  You  must  call  in  man 

Whose  days  are  shuttle-swift — whose  life  a  span." 


SONNETS  47 


Sonnet  Forty-six 


The  Rosary 


(in) 

"I'm  surely  sorry  You're  in  such  a  hole 

It  grieves  me  much.     It  even  makes  me  sore 

That  God  Almighty  is  in  need  of  dole 

Must  pass  the  hat,  and  humbly  crave  for  more. 

It  is  too  bad,  when  one  doth  think  thereon, 

It  is  a  shame,  it  is,  a  beastly  shame 

That  Omnipotence  should  feel  fell  Fortune's  frown 

And  for  man's  rascality  must  take  the  blame. 

It  is  a  pity  deep  as  ever  was 

That  'The  Man  of  War'  should  port  a  bad  black  eye 

How  did  it  happen — O !  Thou  great  First  Cause 

How  did  it  come  to  pass — the  wherefore — why? 

Summon  Thy  courage!     Answer  if  you  can! 

Recall  old  Job !  Gird  up  and  be  a  man !" 


48  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Forty-seven 


The  Rosary 


(IV) 

"That  Thou  art  crafty  none  'in  the  know'  can  doubt 

You're  smooth  as  any  Jew — as  bien  ruse 

And  deep  deceive  a  man  beyond  all  doubt 

And  on  his  feelings  will  most  lightsome  play. 

Great  Moses'  bout  with  Thee  proves  this  to  th'  hilt 

You  falsified  to  Moses  right  along 

With  Moses  frequently  You  made  truth  wilt 

But  he  was  'on  to'  You,  and  'held'  You  strong! 

You  made  the  Devil — he's  Your  own  sweet  job — 

He's  'got  nothing  on  You'  when  it  comes  to  guile — 

Its  easy  to  You  as  rolling  off  a  log 

It  comes  as  easy  as  a  Fakir's  smile 

In  Moses  surely  You  did  meet  Your  match 

And  Moses  napping  did  You  never  catch!" 


SONNETS  49 


Sonnet  Forty-eight 


The  Rosary 


(V) 

"I  take  my  leave  of  Thee — won't  be  gainsay'd 
I've  but  one  regret  on  earth — but  that  is  rank 
I  spurn  the  nearly  fifty  years  I've  pray'd — 
Spurn  as  deep  as  tho'  each  of  the  fifty  stank! 
As  well  pour  water  down  a  dark  rat  hole 
Or  blow  (to  bursting)  up  a  hollow  tree 
Or  hire  as  pilot  a  round,  sleek,  fat  mole 
As  look  for  aid  or  comfort  unto  Thee. 
Deaf  to  injustice  as  an  adder's  ears 
Blind  to  foul  wrong  as  ever  was  a  bat 
Your  impotence  is  worthy  naught  but  jeers 
Or  hottest  blasphemy  "right  off  the  bat." 
Dark  Moloch  mark  the  parting  of  the  ways 
And  look  Your  last  on  him  who  no  more  prays." 


50  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Forty-nine 


The  Rosary 

(VI) 

"What  a  fearful  bluff  was  that  re  Jesus  Christ ! 
'Lo !  I  come  quickly'  is  the  rankest  lie 
The  biggest  belli'd  bluff,  I  truly  wist 
That  on  Time's  burdened  table  e'er  did  lie. 
Naught  can  defend  it — 'tis  a  deep  untruth. 
There's  not  a  word  of  truth  that  lurks  therein 
To  put  up  such  a  bluff,  is,  in  good  sooth, 
To  gambol  nimbly  on  the  verge  of  sin. 
I'm  sick  of  man  because  I  know  the  brute 
I'm  sick  of  God  because  He  won't  "make  good" 
I'm  sick  of  Christ — because,  beyond  dispute, 
He  won't  'come  quickly' — by  the  Holy  Rood! 
Thus  this  foul  world's  'twixt  Hell  and  high  water 
The  wise  man's  watch-word  is :  'Watch  out ! — with  Laugh- 
ter.' " 


SONNETS  51 


Sonnet  Fifty 


A  Twentieth  Century  Psalm 

(i) 

I  wish  to  God,  O !   God,  that  Thou  wert  here 
To  take  Thine  august  seat  upon  the  Bench. 
My  request  is  somewhat  difficult,  I  fear, 
Thy  coming  would  give  man  a  fearful  wrench ! 
But  Thou,  O  Lord,  seest  the  heart  of  man 
Thine  eye  all  penetrant  is  full  as  keen 
As  when  the  face  of  David  Thou  didst  scan 
And  spake  to  Samuel  those  words  serene. 
So  Thou  dost  know  that  I  do  wish  Thou'dst  come 
Thou  knowest  what  I  write  is  no  man's  bluff 
For  years — near  seventeen — my  woof's  been  spun 
Is  not  my  web  of  patience  warp'd  enough? 
But  I  believe,  O  Lord,  Thou  know'st  Thy  game 
So  by  faith  I'll  cling  to  what  none  can  explain. 


52  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Fifty-one 


A  Twentieth  Century  Psalm 

(ii) 

"Let  the  Lord  Arise  and  His  Enemies  Be  Scattered." 

— King  David. 

That  is  my  wish,  Jehovah  Jah,  my  hope. 
The  time  appears  to  me  to  be  full  ripe 
That  the  New  York  rogues  with  whom  so  long  I  cope 
Should  my  goods  give  up,  and  don  the  coming  stripe. 
Thou  know'st,  Jehovah,  I  no  prophet  am 
Therefore  speak  I  under  Thy  supreme  will 
If  the  time  is  not  fulfill'd  in  Thy  world-plan 
Grimly  I'll  suffer  till  Thy  sands  do  fill. 
But  when  that  time  doth  come,  show  that  toward  wrong 
Thine  arm  's  as  long  as  e'er  it  was  before 
And  to  avenge  and  protect  th'  oppress'd  as  strong 
That  "The  everlasting  arms"  are  those  of  yore ! 
'Tis  not  for  myself  that  I  put  up  this  psalm 
To  protect  myself  I've  prov'd  that  I  am  calm. 


SONNETS  S3 


Sonnet  Fifty-two 


Death 

When  our  appointed  sands  shall  run  their  course 

When  in  life's  brief  hour-glass  none  doth  remain 

When  death's  mysterious  river  we  must  cross 

The  following  thoughts  may  ease  the  Soul  her  pain. 

Death  the  Angel  is  of  all  activity 

The  "open  sesame"  to  action  rare! 

The  quick'ning  of  a  new  nativity 

In  a  world  which  is  as  dreadful  as  it's  fair. 

The  bones  do  rest,  the  dust  doth  rest.     They  rest. 

But  the  Spirit — that    which    sprang    from    God's    bright 

Throne 

The  Spirit  which  His  breath  gives  life  and  zest 
The  Spirit  thro'  eternity  goes  on! 
Tomb  the  portal  is  to  Hell  or  Paradise 
Purgatory  is  Hell  and  versa  vice.  , 


54  SONNETS 

Sonnet  Fifty-three 


The  Armour  of  the  Soul 

To  that  mighty  architect  o'  th'  Christian  Creed 
Tarsian  Saul — of  all  apostles  great — 
To  whose  words  of  fire  turn'd  I  in  hour  of  need 
These  simple  lines  I  humbly  dedicate. 
That  soul  encompassed  is  in  complete  steel 
Lock'd  up  in  armour,  mailclad,  all  in  proof! 
That  ne'er  the  stab  of  Conscience  e'er  doth  feel 
That  ne'er  from  her  soul's  Lord  doth  feel  reproof. 
The  helm  of  wisdom  should  she  then  put  on — 
Not  erudition — mere,  but  deep  common-sense. 
Then  seize  the  shield  all  darts  strike  blunt  upon    - 
The  Gorgon-shield  of  calm  indifference. 
With  the  weapon  for  the  soul  St.  Paul  did  forge 
A  man  might  vie  in  battle  with  St.  George ! 


SONNETS  55 


Sonnet  Fifty-four 

L'Envoi 


A  Salt- Water-Ananias 


Yo-Heave-  Ho!  My  Hearties 

(Dedicated  to  the  author  of  the  following  editorial  paragraph.) 

"If  Mr.  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  doesn't  want  the  public  to  be- 
come convinced  that  he  really  is  mentally  unbalanced  he  will  quit  un- 
loading his  poems  on  it." — Norfolk  (Va.)  Pilot,  June  13,  1913. 

Since  when,  my  little  man,  were  you  elect 

To  pass  on  poems  or  on  sanity 

That  you  judicial  office  should  effect 

And — barefac'ed — beget  th'  above  inanity? 

Prince  Bismarck  once  remarked  on  "The  Reptile  Press" 

— That  section  of  the  press  that  loves  a  lie — 

If  he'd  had  to  deal  with  thee  I  frankly  guess — 

The  Pismire  Press,  we'd  see  in  History ! 

A  snake's  too  big  a  thing  to  picture  you — 

A  man  attack'd  by  snake  doth  sometimes  die — 

But  a  man  whom  little  you  attempt  to  do 

Hath  nothing  worse  to  face  than  a  nasty  lie. 

Virginia's  courts  prov'd  my  mind's  sans  a  flaw 

Yet  you — turn-coat — deride  your  own  State's  law. 


56  SONNETS 


Sonnet  Fifty-five 

A  Fresh- Water-Ananias 


A  Biff  for  "Little  Bing" 

"John  Armstrong  Chaloner — the  'Who's  Looney  Now?'  man — has 
written  a  poem  which  his  lawyer  says  will  prove  he  is  sane.  After  read- 
ing the  poem  we're  inclined  to  think  his  best  chance  is  to  plead  an  alibi." 
—Press,  Binghamton,  N.  Y.,  June  14,  1913. 

Here's  another  pillar  o'  th'  Pismire  Press! — 
Paragrapher  o'  th'  "Press"  of  Little  Bing — 
Who  of  the  truth  makes  much  the  nasty  mess 
As  "salt-water-pismire" — whom  we  recent  sing, 
The  Devil  doth  work  strong  in  souls  like  these 
Such  souls  Hell's  vassals  are — His  vavasours — 
Hence  lying  with  them  is  a  real  disease 
A  very  pestilence  that  knows  no  cure ! 
"Plague,  pestilence,  and  famine"  dwell  in  them 
— A  harbourge  they  are  for  Hell's  Three  Hounds — 
Each  hath  an  itch  to  plague  all  brighter  men 
While  their  famine  of  all  honour  knows  no  bounds ! 
May  the  owners  of  said  papers  their  house  clean 
And  purge  their  paper's  pay-rolls  of  souls  so  mean. 


SONNETS  57 


Sonnet  Fifty-six 

The  Future  Duke  of  Asteroid  t 

or 

"Cousin  Willie" 

Bravo !  Cousin  Willie !  Punch  'em  once  again ! 

Buy  another  paper,  and  then,  keep  on! 

And  show  these  "bloomin'  perishin'  "  Englishmen 

You're  bound  to  win  the  game  you're  bent  upon. 

And  when  you're  made  the  Duke  of  Asteroid — 

The  Duke  of  Astor'd  be  too  big  for  you — 

See  that  a  cleaver's  on  your  arm's  deployed — 

A  butcher's  cleaver  thereon  doth  spring  in  view. 

The  Butcher  of  Waldorf's  son  a  genius  was — 

No  greater  Merchant  Prince  did  ever  live — 

So  of  this  genius  give  the  natal  cause 

To  axe  and  chopping-block  all  honour  give! 

That  my  blue-blood  mingled  with  thy  humble  strain 

Doth  please  me  much — I  love  the  people  plain. 


tOn  reading,  June  2ist,  1913,  in  a  London  dispatch,  that  William 
Waldorf  Astor  has  just  acquired  the  London  "Morning  Post,"  he  now 
already  owning  the  London  "Pall-Mall  Gazette"  and  London  "Ob- 
server." 


The  "Tribune" 

New  York  City,  July  15,  1912 


Chaloner  Cuts  off  all  His  Relatives 


FORMER     HUSBAND     OF    AMELIE     RIVES     DEVISES     HIS 

PROPERTY   TO   EDUCATIONAL  AND 

CHARITABLE   INSTITUTIONS. 


RETAINS  CONTROL  FOR  LIFE. 


LEGALLY  INSANE  IN   NEW  YORK,  BUT  SANE  IN  EVERY  OTHER   STATE,   HE   HAS 
QUARRELLED  WITH  ALL  THE  CHANLERS — ESTATE  WORTH  A  MILLION. 


RICHMOND,  Va.,  July  14. — John  Armstrong  Chaloner  made  public 
today  the  details  of  a  deed,  filed  with  Sterling  M.  Gary,  clerk  of  the 
Superior  Court,  Halifax  County,  N.  C,  on  May  13,  1912,  by  virtue  of 
which  he  devises  all  of  his  property,  both  in  this  State  and  in  New 
York,  to  different  institutions  and  charities.  The  boards  of  visitors  of 
the  University  of  Virginia  and  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina  are 
made  Chaloner's  residuary  legatees. 

The  deed  disposes  of  property  worth  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dol- 
lars, and  was  created,  according  to  Mr.  Chaloner,  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  preventing  his  relatives  from  sharing  in  his  estate  in  the  event 
of  his  death. 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner  has  figured  in  court  proceedings  fre- 
quently in  recent  years.  He  was  adjudged  insane  and  committed  to  the 
Bloomingdale  Asylum  in  1897  at  the  instance  of  several  of  his  near 
relatives.  On  Thanksgiving  Eve,  1900,  he  escaped  from  the  institution 
and  made  his  way  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  voluntarily  submitted  to 
a  six  months'  observation  treatment  by  prominent  alienists  in  that 
city.  These  physicians  pronounced  him  sane.  Chaloner  then  returned 
to  his  ancestral  estate,  "The  Merry  Mills,"  at  Cobham,  Va.,  and  has 
spent  most  of  his  time  there  and  in  North  Carolina  since. 
(I) 


APPENDIX 


A  peculiar  feature  of  Chaloner's  case  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  is 
legally  a  lunatic  in  New  York  State,  but  is  perfectly  sane  and  com- 
petent in  every  other  State  in  the  Union.  In  June,  1908,  the  Superior 
Court  of  North  Carolina  gave  Mr.  Chanler  permission  to  change  his 
last  name  to  Chaloner  (the  ancient  form  of  the  name),  by  which  he 
is  now  known.  He  changed  the  spelling  of  his  name,  he  said,  to  escape 
the  stigma  which  has  become  identified  with  the  name  of  Chanler 
owing  to  the  court  proceedings. 

DEED   EXECUTED   IN    MAY. 

Mr.  Chaloner  constantly  refers  to  the  deed  executed  by  him  on 
May  I3th  last  as  "my  last  will  and  testament,"  and  after  reciting  in 
brief  the  details  of  the  court  proceedings  to  have  him  committed  to 
Bloomingdale,  in  1897,  states  he  has  taken  "the  following  means  of 
meeting  the  undesirable  condition  which  confronts  him."  He  then 
formally  disposes  of  the  different  parcels  of  real  estate,  shares  of  stock 
and  personal  property. 

Mr.  Chaloner  makes  a  provision  to  the  effect  that  he  reserves  full 
control  of  all  the  properties  deeded  and  the  voting  power  of  all  securi- 
ties bequeathed,  as  well  as  the  enjoyment  of  the  income  thereof,  for 
his  life.  He  also  reserves  the  right  to  devise  the  proceeds  of  the 
income  from  his  property  to  various  educational  institutions,  specified 
as  follows : 

To  the  Paris  Prize  Fund,  amounting  to  $7S,ooo,  and  originated  by 
Mr.  Chaloner,  a  certain  percentage  of  the  income  of  his  estate,  to  be 
set  aside  annually.  This  fund  is  for  the  purpose  of  bestowing  scholar- 
ships of  $4,500  each,  for  a  five-year  course  of  study  in  Paris  and  other 
European  art  centres,  for  art  students  of  both  sexes. 

To  Columbia  University,  of  New  York,  the  sum  of  $10,000  is 
given,  to  be  invested  by  that  institution  and  the  income  thereof  to  go 
to  increasing  the  Chanler  Historical  Prize,  founded  by  John  Winthrop 
Chanler. 

Other  institutions  to  be  benefited  by  the  terms  of  Mr.  Chaloner's 
will  are  the  Virginia  Military  Institute,  $10,000,  to  be  applied  to  a 
scholarship,  to  be  described  in  Mr.  Chaloner's  "last  will  and  testa- 
ment"; the  Virginia  Polytechnic  Institution,  $10,000;  the  College  of 
Agriculture  and  Mechanic  Arts,  of  North  Carolina,  $10,000;  the  town 
of  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.,  $10,000,  the  income  thereof  to  be  "applied 
to  the  annual  purchase  of  a  Christmas  tree  for  the  public  school  chil- 
dren and  a  present  for  each  child." 

The  University  of  South  Carolina  is  given  the  sum  of  $10,000,  to 
be  applied  to  a  scholarship,  as  is  the  South  Carolina  Military  College. 
The  Clemson  Agricultural  College,  of  South  Carolina,  is  also  given 


APPENDIX 


$10,000  for  a  scholarship,  and  the  last  institution  named  is  the  College 
of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  for  a  like  amount. 

The  total  sum  called  for  in  these  bequests  to  educational  institu- 
tions amounts  to  $90,000,  and  Mr.  Chaloner  specifies  that  if  the  accu- 
mulated income  on  his  death  be  not  sufficient  to  pay  these  bequests  he 
authorizes  his  executor,  the  Virginia  Trust  Company,  of  Richmond,  to 
encumber  any  piece  of  New  York  property  he  owns  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  the  necessary  amount,  but  not  to  sell  any  piece  thereof.  The 
ten-story  office  building  at  No.  298  Broadway,  New  York  City,  owned 
by  Mr.  Chaloner,  is  excepted  in  this  clause  of  the  deed. 

The  parcels  of  real  estate  and  securities  deeded  to  the  boards  of 
visitors  of  the  Universities  of  Virginia  and  of  North  Carolina  include: 

(1)  856  shares  of  the  preferred  capital  stock  of  the  United  Indus- 
trial Company,  grounds  and  factory,  at  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.,  of  the 
par  value  of  $100  each,  and  230  shares  of  the  common  capital  stock, 
valued  at  $100  each. 

(2)  3,540  shares  of  the  capital  stock  of  the  Roanoke  Rapids  Power 
Company  of  the  par  value  of  $10  each  (formerly  $100  each,  reduced  to 
$10  each),  standing  in  the  name  of  the  grantor.     This  company  owns 
land   and   water   power   at   Roanoke   Rapids,    in   the    State   of    North 
Carolina. 

(3)  Promissory   note    of   the   United    Industrial    Company,    dated 
August  19,  1898,  for  $8,000,  payable  to  the  order  of  the  grantor,  secured 
by  deed  of  trust  or  mortgage  made  by  said  company  to  Prescott  Hall 
Butler,  as  trustee,  of  even  date  with  said  note  of  or  upon  the  lands  and 
mill    and    buildings    and    water    rights    of    said    company,    situated    at 
Roanoke  Rapids,  Halifax  County,  N.  C. 

(4)  Second  mortgage  made  by  the  United  Industrial  Company  to 
the  grantor  upon  its  lands  and  mills  and  buildings  and  water  rights, 
situated  at  Roanoke  Rapids,  Halifax  County,  N.  C.,  dated  September 
15,  1898,  to  secure  the  payment  of  $35,112.64  on  September  15,  1899,  and 
interest  thereon  at  6  per  cent,  per  annum,  subject  to  above  mentioned 
first  mortgage. 

(5)  The  grantor's  share  in  the  Cozine  farm,  in  New  York  City, 
left  to  him  by  his  grandaunt,  Laura  Astor  Delano. 

(6)  Lot  of  land,  with  the  ten-story  office  building  thereon,   situ- 
ated  in  the   borough   of    Manhattan,   in   the  city  of    New   York,   and 
known  by  the  street  number  298  Broadway. 

(7)  A  villa  site  of  about  360  acres  on  the  Hudson  River,  in  the 
township  of  Rhinebeck,  Dutchess  County,  New  York. 

(8)  A  farm  or  tract  of  land  situated  in  the  town  of  Red  Hook, 
in   the   county   of    Dutchess,    in   the    State   of    New    York,    called    the 
Sipperly  Farm,  comprising  about  sixty  acres  of  land,  with  a  small  house 
and  barn  thereon. 


APPEXDIX 


(9)  The  three  hundred  acre,  more  or  less,  cotton  plantation  known 
as  the  Badger  Place,  in  Halifax  County,  N.  C.,  between  the  towns  of 
Roanoke  Rapids  and  Weldon,  together  with  several  parcels  of  real 
estate  in  Roanoke  Rapids. 

HE  IS   KIN   OF  ASTORS. 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Chaloner's  incarceration  in  the  Bloomingdale 
Asylum  the  affair  created  a  furor  in  Xew  York  society.  He  is 
the  eldest  of  the  eight  children  of  the  late  John  Winthrop  Chanler,  of 
Xew  York,  and  Charleston,  S.  C. ;  through  whom  he  is  descended  from 
John  Winthrop,  first  Governor  of  Massachusetts  under  King  Charles  II, 
and  Peter  Stuyvesant,  the  last  Dutch  Governor  of  Xew  Amsterdam, 
now  New  York.  His  father  died  some  years  ago.  Mr.  Chaloner  is 
also  related  to  the  Astor  family  of  New  York  through  his  late  mother, 
a  granddaughter  of  the  original  John  Jacob  Astor.  He  is  a  cousin  of 
William  Waldorf  Astor  and  John  Jacob  Astor,  who  went  down  with 
the  White  Star  liner  "Titanic."  He  is  now  about  forty-nine  years  old. 

Mr.  Chaloner's  brothers  and  sisters  are  Winthrop  Astor  Chanler, 
Colonel  William  Astor  Chanler,  ex-Congressman  from  New  York; 
Lewis  Stuyvesant  Chanler,  former  Lieutenant-Governor  of  New  York; 
Robert  Winthrop  Chanler,  formerly  Sheriff  of  Dutchess  County,  New 
York;  Elizabeth  Winthrop  Chanler  Chapman,  Margaret  Livingston 
Chanler  Aldrich  and  Alida  Beeckman  Chanler  Emmet. 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner  married  Amelie  Rives,  the  writer,  on 
June  14,  1888,  and  she  divorced  him  in  1895,  because  of  incompatibility 
of  temperament.  She  later  married  Prince  Pierre  Troubetzkoy,  a  Rus- 
sian portrait  painter. 

Ever  since  his  escape  from  Bloomingdale  Mr.  Chaloner  has  shown 
the  greatest  bitterness  against  his  relatives  who  sought  to  have  him 
adjudged  insane.  He  has  at  all  times  refused  to  treat  with  them,  no 
matter  what  the  occasion. 

In  March,  1009,  Chaloner  shot  and  killed  John  Gillard  in  the  Merry 
Mills  house  in  a  scuffle  over  a  revolver.  Gillard  had  attacked  his — 
Gillard's — wife,  and  had  drawn  a  revolver,  preparatory  to  shooting  her, 
when  Chaloner  grappled  with  the  man,  the  weapon  being  discharged  in 
the  fight.  A  jury  of  Virginia  farmers  acquitted  Chaloner  and  compli- 
mented him  on  the  splendid  courage  he  had  shown  in  defending  the 
life  of  Mrs.  Gillard. 

Chaloner  later  bought  a  piece  of  ground  and  erected  a  tombstone 
to  Gillard.* 


*The  coroner's  jury  on  March  16,  1909,  acquitted  Chaloner  of  shooting  Gillard, 
in  the  following  language,  in  effect:  Gillard  was  killed  by  a  bullet  from  a  revol- 
ver in  his  hands  and  those  of  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  while  the  latter  was 
attempting,  in  good  faith,  to  prevent  Gillard  from  shooting  his,  Gillard's,  wife. 


APPENDIX 


*  Prologue :  page  xxxi. 

Right  here  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  must  perforce  pause — not  "for 
a  reply,"  but  to  forestall  a  false  reply  upon  the  part  of  uninformed 
or  hostile  critics.  When  it  is  understood  that  around  this  man's  name 
whirl  six  libel  suits,  in  three  great  cities,  involving  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  of  damages,  now  pending;  the  most  casual  reader 
will  see  that  it  is  a  friendly — a  charitable — act,  upon  our  part  to 
prevent  all  possibility  of  a  misunderstanding  concerning  our  attitude 
in  the  said  Gillard  affair,  and  thus  prevent  the  necessity  of  our  bring- 
ing fresh  libel  suits  on  account  of  new  lies  dished  up  by  malicious 
and  evil-disposed  members  of  the  great  Journalistic  profession. 

In  the  first  place,  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  was  upon  the  defensive 
from  first  to  last  in  said  Gillard  affair.  It  is  not  our  purpose  to  take 
the  cream  off  one  of  the  most  dramatic  newspaper  stories  ever  de- 
veloped in  a  court  of  law,  by  saying  one  unnecessary  word  about  the 
inside  facts  of  the  said  sad  catastrophe.  All  that  will  be  brought  to 
town  in  due  time,  when  our  said  libel  suits  reach  a  hearing.  Let  it 
suffice  to  say  therefore,  that  it  has  already  been  incontrovertibly 
proved — in  legal  proceedings  already  had  in  said  premises — that  the 
writer  was  knocked  down  twice  by  said  Gillard,  with  a  pair  of  heavy 
iron  tongs,  before  the  writer  raised  a  finger  against  said  Gillard.  That 
even  after  being  knocked  down,  the  writer  did  not  raise  a  finger 
against  said  Gillard  until  said  Gillard  had  seised  a  revolver  and  pointed 
it  full  in  his — said  Gillard's — wife's  face,  with  the  indisputable  desire 
of  discharging  same.  Then,  and  then  only,  did  the  author  of  "Scorpio" 
grapple  with  said  Gillard  in  order  to  prevent  murder  in  his  own 
dining-room  at  "The  Merry  Mills,"  whither  said  Gillard's  wife,  accom- 
panied by  an  infant  in  arms,  three  or  four  other  small  children,  and 
her  fourteen-year-old  son,  had  come  for  temporary  refuge  of  a  few 
hours — until  the  two  white,  married,  farmers  at  "The  Merry  Mills" 
should  return,  with  their  wives  and  children,  from  visiting  a  neigh- 
bor— when  said  Gillard's  wife  and  children  were  to  be  housed  by 
said  farmers'  families,  until  the  law  could  be  called  in  to  prevent  said 
Gillard  from  beating  his  wife  to  death — it  being  only  after  a  severe 
beating  with  a  poker  that  said  Gillard's  wife  and  family  mustered  up 
courage  enough  to  fly  from  Gillard  to  the  protection  of  the  law,  as 
aforesaid. 

Said  Gillard  lived  about  two  miles  from  "The  Merry  Mills." 
with  his  wife  and  family.  Neither  said  Gillard  nor  his  wife  had  ever 
spent  a  day  at  "The  Merry  Mills"  or  been  employed  by  the  writer. 
Said  Gillard  had  been  the  recipient  of  considerable  charitable  aid  from 
the  writer  for  several  months  preceding  his  demise,  for  the  reason 


APPENDIX 


that  he  was  out  of  a  job,  couldn't  get  one — he  was  a  skilled  mechanic — 
at  the  moment  in  a  country  neighborhood — and  had  a  large  family  of 
young  children.  The  writer — as  can  be  readily  ascertained  by  inquiring 
where  he  lives,  in  Albemarle  County,  Virginia,  or  Halifax  County, 
North  Carolina — believes  in  practicing  Christianity,  if  one  claims  to  be 
a  Christian.  And  the  author  of  "The  Rosary?'  emphatically  is  a  Chris- 
tian, with  a  faith — in  these  weak-kneed  chocolate-eclair-spined  times — 
second  only  in  intensity  to  that  of  David,  King  of  Israel.  "Perfect  love 
casteth  out  fear":  hence  the  author  of  "The  Rosary"  is  unafraid  of 
the  tinge  of  blasphemy  shading  that  series  of  sonnets.  Verbum  sap. 

To  resume  and  conclude.  Being  a  Christian  practitioner,  the 
author  of  "The  Rosary"  followed  the  lead  given  in  "bear  ye  one 
another's  burdens"  and  took  on  the  load  of  the  Gillard  family  with  a 
heavy  sigh — for  it  was  a  heavy  load !  Paid  the  rent  of  their  house, 
and  guaranteed  the  local  storekeepers  against  loss  in  supplying  the 
said  family  with  necessaries  of  life,  until  such  time  as  the  big  plant 
in  Richmond,  Va.,  should  open,  full  force ;  in  which  said  Gillard  had 
been  employed  upon  his  recent  arrival  from  England  with  his  family, 
from  which  he — with  a  large  number  of  other  skilled  mechanics — was 
turned  off,  owing  to  a  partial  shut-down  of  the  shops.  So  much  for 
the  facts  in  the  case. 

In  the  second  and  last  place,  our  invitation  to  hostiles  in  the 
Prologue  is  such  an  one  as  puts  us  on  the  defensive — not  makes  us 
the  aggressor.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  predicament  in  which  the 
author  of  "Scorpio"  could  be  forced  into  being  the  aggressor.  If 
the  language  of  any  paper  is  too  strong  to  be  replied  to  in  kind — 
iii*.,  by  the  pen  in  one  of  the  various  "Scorpios,"  No.  i,  No.  2,  No.  3, 
etc.,  etc.,  we  are  fully  content  to  allow  the  arm  of  the  law  to  avenge 
us,  and  not  our  own.  Hence  it  would,  and  could,  only  be  in  case  an 
irate  hostile  came  after  us  that  any  trouble  could  ensue.  In  which 
event — in  the  premises — it  would  not  be  of  our  seeking,  any  more 
than  the  Gillard  affair  was  of  our  seeking.  Can  the  thickest-headed 
hostile  that  ever  guided  a  pen  claim  that  there  is  anything  "contrary 
to  Hoyle"  in  our  position? 


APPENDIX 


The  "Press" 

Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  April  28,  191$ 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner  Turns  to  Writing  Sonnets 

LATEST    BOOK    ENTITLED    "SCORPIO"    A    COLLECTION    OF    SHORT    POEMS 
CONTAINING  LOTS  OF  "PUNCH"— RAPS  GOLDEN  HORSESHOE. 


GRANDSON     OF     ASTOR,     WHO     SPENT     SIX     MONTHS     IN     SANITARIUM     HERE, 
SHOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  DETAINED,  DR.   TAYLOR  DECLARES. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner  is  writing  sonnets. 

Whosoever  must  scratch  his  head  to  recall  who  John  Armstrong 
Chaloner  is,  need  only  recall  newspaper  and  magazine  articles  of  the 
last  half  dozen_  years,  those  stories  about  the  millionaire  Virginian  who 
was  confined  in  a  New  York  insane  asylum  at  the  instance  of  his 
family. 

"Who's  looney  now?"  became  a  by-word  in  conversation  and  writ- 
ings when  Chaloner  escaped  from  "Bloomingdale,"  where  he  was  con- 
fined, and  went  back  to  his  home  at  Merry  Mills,  Cobham,  Va.  It  was 
Chaloner  himself  who  asked  the  question  and  he  directed  it  at  those 
members  of  his  own  family,  who,  he  maintained,  had  him  incarcerated 
so  that  they  could  use  and  manage  his  estate. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Chaloner  came  directly  to  Philadelphia 
when  he  escaped  and  as  "John  Childe"  entered  a  private  sanitarium, 
where  after  six  months  of  observation  he  was  declared  a  normal  man 
by  Drs.  J.  Madison  Taylor,  H.  C.  Wood  and  Thompson  Jay  Hudson. 
It  was  at  Dr.  Taylor's  sanitarium  that  he  stayed  as  "John  Childe." 

Dr.  Taylor  was  asked  yesterday  if  he  had  read  Chaloner's  book  of 
sonnets,  which  has  been  entitled  "Scorpio." 

SHOULD  NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  DETAINED. 

"Yes,  I  have,"  the  alienist  said,  "and  I  consider  it  a  fine  and  unique 
effort  of  special  pleading."  Dr.  Taylor  said  that  Chaloner  had  been 
evidently  normal  from  the  first  day  he  set  foot  in  the  sanitarium  in  this 
city  and  that  he  should  never  have  been  detained  anywhere.  It  was 
always  plain  that  Chaloner  was  a  brilliant  man,  the  doctor  said,  but 
while  here  he  had  never  given  any  inkling  of  his  intention  to  write. 


APPENDIX 


This  book  "Scorpio"  is  a  collection  of  really  brilliant  sonnets. 
They  follow  the  Shakespearean  style  in  construction,  and  have  what 
might  be  called  the  "punch."  He  tells  very  frankly  in  his  prologue, 
in  which  he  chooses  to  employ  the  editorial  "we"  rather  than  the  first 
person,  that  he  well  realizes  that  magazines  and  newspapers  and  simi- 
lar agencies  are  so  controlled  that  they  cannot  print  what  their  editors 
would  wish,  but  that  he  with  his  million  dollars  behind  him  can  do 
much  as  he  pleases,  and  devil  take  the  hindmost. 

So  he  chooses  his  subjects  from  a  wide  field  and  hammers  whom 
he  pleases.  As  an  indicative  title,  he  could  not  have  chosen  better  than 
"Scorpio."  He  whips  and  scourages  with  a  real  vehemence,  and  there  is 
both  logic  and  music  in  his  way  of  putting  it  together. 

RAPS   GOLDEN    HORSESHOE. 

For  instance:  "The  Devil's  Horseshoe."  In  this  particular  period 
of  opera  unrest,  of  which  Philadelphia  is  getting  its  share  now,  it  is 
interesting  to  print  that  especial  sonnet.  To  any  one  who  has  ever 
been  in  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  New  York  it  is  evident  that 
he  has  in  mind  the  Golden  Horseshoe.  Here  it  is : 

A  fecund  sight  for  the  philosopher — 

Rich  as  Golconda's  mine  in  lessons  rare — 
That  gem-bedizn'd  "horse  shoe"  at  th'  Opera, 

Replete  with  costly  hags  and  matrons  fair ! 
His  votaresses  doth  Mammon  there  array, 

His  Amazonian  Phalanx  dread  to  face ! 
To  Mammon  there  do  they  their  homage  pay; 

Spangl'd  with  jewels,  satins,  silks  and  lace, 
Crones  whose  old  bosoms  in  their  corsets  creak; 

Beldames  whose  slightest  glance  would  fright  a  horse; 
Ghouls — when  they  speak  one  hears  the  grave-mole  squeak — 

Their  escorts  parvenus  of  feature  coarse. 
A  rich  array  of  Luxury  and  Vice ! 

But,  spite  of  them,  the  music's  very  nice. 

In  the  prologue,  which  by  the  way,  is  every  bit  as  interesting  as  are 
the  sonnets  themselves,  he  explains  that  he  does  not  take  himself  seri- 
ously, that  he  backs  no  "isms,"  advocates  no  new  departures,  detests 
cranky  theories,  and  then  continues  in  this  wise : 

We — meaning  himself — are  guided  by  the  same  everyday  prin- 
ciples of  the  educated  man  in  the  street,  who  has  happened  to  run 
across  a  medium  for  flaying  fools  and  rogues  that,  in  concentration, 


APPENDIX 


swiftness  of  action,  and  completeness  of  result,  beats  any  form  of 
satirical  flagellation.  We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  Shakespearean  form 
of  sonnet,  ending,  as  it  does,  in  a  rhyming  climax — a  rhythmic  knock- 
out blow. 

ODE    TO    JOURNALISTS. 

Chaloner  does  say  some  pleasant  things.  Take  for  example  the 
sonnet  he  calls  Journalists. 

All  hail  ye  doughty  wielders  o'  The  Pen! 

Ye  bold  swashbucklers  o'  the  daily  press. 
I  hold  ye  high  amongst  the  sons  of  men. 

I  honor  the  talent  that  ye  all  possess. 
For  talent  ye  must  have  or  ye'd  starve  to  death. 

On  newspapers  the  fittest  sole  survives, 
That  race  is  to  the  swift — the  deep  of  breath. 

The  strength  o'  your  good  sword-arms  saves  your  lives. 
The  press  today's  the  arena  of  the  world. 

There,  fame  and  gold — in  time — reward  each  sword, 
Which,  when  the  daily  dust  of  combat's  curl'd, 

Can  unerring  strike  upon  the  gleaming  word ! 
Once  more  all  hail !  And  all  prosperity. 

All  in  the  day's  work  once  you  "roasted"  me. 

SAYS  "SCORPIO"  IN  THERE  TO  STAY. 

"Scorpio,"  so  its  author  tells,  has  come  to  stay.  He  promises  its 
appearance  at  intervals  of  no  certain  schedule,- but  it  will  come,  and  in 
it  will  be  the  sonnetorial  criticism  of  all  those  big  figures,  whom,  he 
declares,  the  press  dare  not  strike.  So  now  Chaloner  spends  most 
his  time  at  Merry  Mills  or  on  his  estate  at  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. 
His  book  is  from  the  Palmetto  Press  at  Roanoke. 

Chaloner  has  written  and  done  other  things  besides  "Scorpio."  He 
wrote  "Four  Years  Behind  the  Bars  of  Bloomingdale,"  and  he  married 
Amelie  Rives,  the  author  of  "The  Quick  or  the  Dead."  That  mar- 
riage has  been  since  dissolved  and  she  is  now  better  known  as  Princess 
Troubetzkoy. 

Besides  his  efforts  and  successes  in  writing,  Mr.  Chaloner  spends 
a  deal  of  time  in  lecturing  and  studying.  He  has  labored  long  over 
the  acquirement  of  a  knowledge  of  lunacy  laws,  and  he  still  stays  out- 
side of  the  State  of  New  York  under  the  pain  of  being  arrested  as  an 
escaped  lunatic  the  moment  he  sets  foot  in  there.  He  takes  credit  for 
nothing  that  is  not  his,  and  in  that  ever-interested  prologue  tells  just 
whom  he  considers  his  masters,  thus : 


APPENDIX 


We  tread  humbly  after  our  four  masters,  to  wit:  Juvenal,  Vol- 
taire, Swift  and  Byron.  We  aim,  however  lowly,  at  the  strength  of 
Juvenal,  the  keenness  of  Voltaire,  the  fierceness  of  Swift  and  the  form 
of  Byron. 

ASTOR'S  GRANDSON. 

The  story  of  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  could  be  made  to  run  for 
columns,  even  the  recital  of  the  last  few  years  of  his  life.  He  is  a 
great-great-grandson  of  the  first  John  Jacob  Astor,  and  his  experi- 
ences are  linked  with  names  both  highly  colored  and  honored.  Just 
for  instance,  one  might  recall  his  own  assertion  that  Stanford  White 
was  the  man  who  lured  him  to  Bloomingdale. 

The  alleged  "New  Vision  of  Hell,"  being  a  spirit  message  there- 
from, by  Chaloner,  gives  another  vision  of  the  man.  It  seems  that  he 
has  gone  William  James  one  better.  As  yet  no  Philadelphians  have 
come  in  for  the  talons  of  Chaloner's  scourge,  but  he  has  emphasized 
the  fact  that  he  neither  fears  anyone  nor  has  any  prejudice  or  partial 
leanings,  so  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  such  a  sonnet  will  come. 


The  "Commercial" 

Buffalo,  New  York,  May  S,  ISIS 

Scorpion,  in  Biblical  usage,  means  a  scourge,  and  as  used  by  J. 
A.  Chaloner  in  his  recently  issued  "Scorpio,"  the  lash  must  be  con- 
stantly held  in  mind,  for  the  eccentric  author  has  certainly  laid  about 
him  with  a  vim.  Practically  no  class  of  society  or  any  individual 
branch  of  the  professions  is  left  immune  from  his  castigation.  But 
not  all  of  Mr.  Chaloner's  sonnets  are  of  the  vitriolic  character.  In 
some  are  shown  the  tender  emotions  of  the  true  poet.  There  is  an 
oddity  to  the  book,  which  of  itself  gives  it  a  species  of  charm,  though 
the  absolute  truth  of  some  of  his  arraignments  must  not  be  lost  sight 
of.  In  a  lengthy  appendix,  the  writer,  through  copious  newspaper 
extracts,  gives  the  reader  a  glimpse  of  personal  history,  which  at  once 
establishes  the  fact  that  "truth  is  stranger  than  fiction."  The  book 
must  be  read  carefully  to  be  fully  appreciated.  Its  perusal  cannot 
fail  to  enlist  a  degree  of  sympathy  for  the  individual  of  whose  soul 
torment  the  contents  of  the  volume  appears  to  be  an  expression. 


APPENDIX 


The  "Globe  and  Commercial  Advertiser" 

New  York  City,  May  3,  1913 

LIFE  AND  SONNETS  OF  "AN  ASTOR," 

Not  the  least  interesting  part  of  John  Armstrong  Chaloner's  book 
of  sonnets  called  '"Scorpio"  are  the  numerous  appendices,  consisting 
chiefly  of  newspaper  clippings,  in  which  we  may  refresh  ourselves  re- 
garding the  amazing  career  of  the  author.  We  read  how  this  million- 
aire descendant  of  the  original  Astor  was  "railroaded,"  as  he  says,  by 
relatives  into  Bloomingdale,  kept  there  four  years,  made  a  sensational 
escape,  and  finally  turned  up  in  Virginia  again,  where  he  married 
Amelie  Rives,  the  novelist,  and  was  the  prototype  for  the  hero  of  her 
famous  novel,  "The  Quick  or  the  Dead."  But  no  novel  that  Amelie 
Rives  ever  wrote  is  more  exciting  than  Chaloner's  own  story. 

Although  originally  published  six  years  ago,  American  readers  are 
now  for  the  first  time  permitted  to  read  "Scorpio."  In  a  note  which 
accompanies  his  book  Mr.  Chaloner  explains  why  six  years  ago  he  sent 
his  book  only  to  England  for  review.  He  was  unwilling  to  add  to  the 
many  troubles  he  already  had  that  of  possible  literary  attack.  Now, 
however,  that  he  believes  that  the  litigation  in  which  he  has  been 
engaged  for  seventeen  years  to  recover  the  control  of  his  property  is 
soon  to  be  terminated  favorably,  he  is  unafraid.  With  $1,000,000  back 
of  him,  as  he  says,  he  dares  to  hurl  his  book  even  among  those  whom 
it  flays.  On  his  title  page  is  the  acrimonious  phrase  from  Tactitus 
"Keenest  is  the  hatred  of  kin." 

In  the  Shakespearean  sonnet  Mr.  Chaloner  believes  he  has  found 
a  medium  for  slaying  his  enemies  equal  to  the  seven-thonged  scourge 
which  is  reproduced  on  the  cover  of  his  book;  equal  even  to  the  prize 
fighter's  blows.  In  the  final  rhyming  couplet  especially  he  finds  a  knock- 
out blow  that  never  fails  to  be  admirably  effective.  Although  for  the 
most  part  classic  in  form,  as  the  accompanying  note  advises  us,  Mr. 
Chaloner  is  not  squeamish  as  to  the  number  of  syllables — ten  or  eleven 
to  the  sonnet  line  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  him.  He  refuses  "to 
skimp  his  meaning  for  the  sake  of  smoothness." 

We  had  already  selected  for  quotation  the  sonnet  on  the  Opera 
before  we  saw  that  this  is  also  the  one  that  the  London  Academy 
quoted  in  its  review,  which  is  pasted  on  an  inside  cover  of  the  book. 
This  is  sonnet  forty- four,  called  "The  Devil's  Horseshoe": 

A  fecund  sight  for  a  Philosopher — 
Rich  as  Golconda's  mine  in  lessons  rare, 
That  gem-bedizen'd  "horseshoe"  at  th'  Opera 
Replete  with  costly  hags,  and  matrons  fair ! 


12  APPENDIX 


His  votaresses  doth  Mammon  there  array 

His  Amazonian  Phalanx  dread  to  face ! 

To  Mammon  there  do  they  their  homage  pay 

Spangl'd  with  jewels,  satins,  silks,  and  lace, 

Crones  whose  old  bosoms  within  their  corsets  creak. 

Beldames  whose  slightest  glance  would  fright  a  horse. 

Ghouls — when  they  speak  one  hears  the  grave-mole  squeak— 

Their  escorts  parvenus  of  features  coarse. 

A  rich  array  of  Luxury  and  Vice ! 

But  spite  of  them,  the  music's  very  nice. 

Those  who  are  fortunate  enough  to  come  into  possession  of  a 
copy  of  "Scorpio"  should  keep  it.  Six  times  six  years  from  now  it  is 
likely  to  be  more  valuable  than  it  is  at  present,  since  the  freak  books  of 
today  are  likely  to  be  the  treasured  curiosities  of  tomorrow.  It  is 
published  by  the  Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Radips,  N.  C. 


The  "Journal" 

Richmond,  Virginia,  May  10,  1913 

("Scorpio,"  a  Collection  of   Sonnets.     By  John  Armstrong  Chaloner, 
Cobham,  Va.) 

If  Dr.  Sam  Johnson,  who  loved  "a  very  good  hater,"  were  living 
in  this  day  and  generation  he  would  be  more  than  apt  to  take  a  violent 
fancy  to  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  the  author  of  the  little  book  of 
sonnets  which  bears  the  general  title  "Scorpio,"  for  Mr.  Chaloner  as- 
suredly comes  in  the  category  of  good  haters. 

It  is  probable,  too,  that  Dr.  Johnson  would  feel  drawn  to  the 
author  of  "Scorpio"  for  another  reason — the  fact  that  the  latter,  like 
the  great  lexicographer,  has  expressed  his  dislikes  for  certain  men  and 
things  through  the  medium  of  satire. 

But  the  dogmatic  old  man  whom  Jimmy  Boswell  adored  long  since 
has  turned  to  dust,  so  Mr.  Chaloner  must  look  for  friends  in  another 
direction.  His  unique  little  book  perhaps  will  gain  him  many  and 
lose  him  some ;  at  any  rate,  it  will  focus  the  attention  of  the  literary 
world  upon  him,  for  the  work  sparkles  with  the  jewel  of  originality. 

Whatever  crudities  it  contains — and  the  most  biased  critic  will  con- 
fess that  it  does  not  lack  them — the  reader  can  but  admit  that  the 
poet  has  a  frank,  manly  way  of  hurling  his  javelins,  and  as  a  general 
thing  he  makes  targets  only  of  those  deserving  of  his  wrath. 


APPENDIX  13 


It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  reviewer  to  explain  why  Mr.  Chaloner 
has  grievances — he  himself  does  this  through  statements  embodied  in 
the  appendix  of  his  book — but  we  cannot  refrain  from  borrowing  a 
word  or  so  from  his  prologue. 

This  prose  production  makes  stimulating  reading;  it  is  a  defiant, 
mordant  thing  with  a  flavor  quite  its  own. 

The  poet  expresses  the  belief  that  the  press,  for  the  most  part, 
is  muzzled  through  monetary  considerations,  and,  therefore,  he  thinks 
a  bold  spirit,  who  has  no  need  to  worry  about  dollars  and  cents,  will 
find  a  wide,  wide  field  for  criticism  if  he  cares  to  do  some  tilting  on  the 
free  lance  plan. 

Mr.  Chaloner  proposes  to  take  this  job  upon  himself,  for  he  is 
"indifferent  alike  to  advertisers,  leaders  of  high  finance,  trade  unions  and 
the  Church."  He  then  announces  that  he  intends  to  tread  humbly  after 
four  masters  of  wit — Juvenal,  Voltaire,  Swift  and  Byron.  This  state- 
ment is  followed  by  the  assertion  that  he  backs  no  "isms"  or  new  de- 
partures, and  detests  cranky  theories  as  thoroughly  as  he  detests  cranks. 
Last  of  all,  Mr.  Chaloner  explains  that  his  medium  of  aggressiveness 
will  be  an  imitation  of  the  Shakespearean  sonnet,  which,  ending  as 
it  does  in  a  rhyming  climax,  affords  him  an  opportunity  to  get  in  vari- 
ous and  divers  "rhythmic  knock-out  blows." 

In  his  salutatory — the  sonnet  of  the  book — the  poet  says: 

The  nameless  folly  of  the  human  race, 

Its  cruel  selfishness  and  trackless  guile, 
Make  me  asham'd  at  sight  of  human  face — 

That  stamping  ground  for  treachery  and  wile. 

A  moment  later  in  true  classical  fashion  he  calls  on  Apollo  to  help 
him  in  his  undertaking,  and  then,  as  additional  auxiliaries,  he  invokes 
the  Muses — "lovely  companions  of  the  Flaming  God."  Pretty  soon 
after  this  Mr.  Chaloner  gets  down  to  business  and  once  he  starts  his 
blood  circulating,  he  never  allows  the  dust  of  the  arena  to  settle.  After 
trumpeting  a  sort  of  rhythmic  challenge  to  Swinburne  and  Kipling 
who,  notwithstanding  their  virtues,  have  been  detected  in  certain  poetic 
misdemeanors,  Mr.  Chaloner  sends  up  an  Isaiah-like  wail  concerning 
"Columbia"  which  is  couched  in  these  pungent  words: 
"My  country  'tis  of  thee" — I  do  not  sing. 

You're  in  too  sad  a  plight,  believe  me,  dear, 
For  plaudits  to  have  aught  but  a  false  ring— 

The  shallow  clang  of  counterfeit  to  th'  ear. 
The  courage  of  your  soldiers  all  men  know; 
Their  daring  and  their  patience  all  have  seen. 


I4  APPENDIX 


Your  sailors'  marksmanship  full  well  doth  show 

How  accurate  their  discipline  hath  been ; 
But  justice  in  thy  land  hath  gone  astray; 

Believe  me,  dear,  she  wanders  from  the  path 
And  like  a  drunken  harlot  reels  her  way 

Along  the  broad  road  that  meets — The  People's  wrath. 
That  your  Legislatures  and  your  courts  you  purge 

"Sweet  land" — my  land — "of  Liberty" — I  urge. 

Pretty  drastic,  that,  and  not  altogether  unlike  political  literature ! 
Something  else  of  the  same  nature,  which  may  not  be  mal  apropos  at 
this  season,  appears  under  the  caption  "The  Initiative  and  Referendum," 
which  contains  these  lines : 

The  People's  will  is  kill'd  by  the  humdrum 

Monotony  p'  the  venality  o'  fat 

Bribe-gorging  law-makers,  State  and  National. 

It  needs  hardly  be  explained,  after  the  reproduction  of  these 
samples  of  verse,  that  the  poet  is  democratic  to  the  core.  He  espouses 
the  cause  of  the  working  people — 

"To  whose  strong  hands  earth  renders  up  her  spoil" 

and  likewise  he  has  some  kind  things  to  say  of  journalists.  Although 
his  preface  has  alluded  to  editors  whose  utterances  are  circumscribed 
by  cash  considerations,  he  says :  "The  press  today's  the  arena  of  the 
world."  On  newspapers,  he  says,  the  fittest  sole  survives,  for  that  race 
is  to  the  swift — the  deep  of  breath. 

"High  society" — and  alas,  the  ladies  of  this  upper  world — are 
savagely  assailed  by  the  poet,  who  does  not  mince  words  in  describing 
its  rottenness.  He  likewise  grows  vitriolic  in  his  attack  on  Dr.  Osier, 
the  man  who  would  relegate  the  old  chaps  to  the  rear.  Perhaps  the 
individual  who  most  of  all  feels  the  severity  of  the  satirist  is  G. 
Bernard  Shaw,  the  playwright,  who  has  won  Chaloner's  everlasting 
dislike  by  his  contemptuous  references  to  Shakespeare.  The  poet  calls 
him  "that  Irish  blatherskite  rude  Bernard  Shaw,"  and  concludes  one 
of  his  sonnets — that  entitled  "A  Bogus  Bashaw  of  Letters" — with  this 
"knock-out  blow" : 

A  mere  Grub  Street  critic,  he  should  avoid 
Aught  more  artistic  than  the  role  of  joker. 
You  carp  at  Shakespeare,  you  shock-headed  lout. 
Before  I've  done,  I'll  turn  you  inside  out. 


APPENDIX  15 


The  casual  reader,  after  perusing  such  threats  as  that,  might  think 
it  a  wise  plan  to  put  the  poet  under  peace  bond,  but  a  little  more  in- 
vestigation will  show  that  there  are  moments  when  Chaloner  is  as 
placid  as  a  Swiss  lake.  In  these  moods  he  writes  sonnets  which  lack 
the  martial  ring  and  substitutes  therefor  specimens  of  word  painting 
that  are  truly  beautiful,  to  say  nothing  of  thoughts  that  are  stately 
in  their  dignity. 

Virgil  could  not  surpass  the  poem  on  "Midsummer,"  which  de- 
scribes a  winged  army  of  fierce-working  bees,  while  the  sonnet  on 
"Butterflies"  is  the  very  soul  of  poetry.  Indeed,  Mr.  Chaloner,  in  his 
gentler  moods  will  be  regarded  by  some  as  at  his  best,  _  though  the 
critic  of  the  London  Academy  admires  him  most  when  he  is  fiercest. 

However  great  may  be  the  diversity  of  taste  in  this  matter,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  is  no  common  rhymster,  and 
that  his  verses  are  nothing  if  not  entertaining.  And  perhaps  the  reason 
for  his  aggressive  verses  may  be  found  in  the  following  lines  entitled 
"Oppression" : 

Oppression  was  the  rod  that  struck  the  rock 
And  loos'd  the  fiery  floodgates  of  my  tongue. 

The  click  behind  me  of  the  prison  lock 
Unlock'd  the  fetters  that  had  kept  it  dumb. 

The  body  free,  then  was  the  tongue  enchain'd ; 
The  body  'prison'd,  then  the  tongue  sprung  free. 


16  APPENDIX 


The  "Virginian" 

Richmond,  Virginia,  April  SO,  1913 


Pay  Respects  to  "Fourth  Estate" 

CHALONER  "HAILS"  AND  PREDICTS  FAME  AND  GOLD  WILL  COME. 


Inside  knowledge  of  "the  newspaper  game"  is  displayed  by  John 
Armstrong  Chaloner,  in  one  of  the  poems  in  "Scorpio,"  the  book  of 
sonnets,  which  just  now  is  greatly  interesting  the  smart  set  of  New 
York,  whose  foibles  and  vices  it  flays. 

After  paying  his  respects  to  society  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House  in  his  poem,  "The  Devil's  Horseshoe,"  and  after  epitomizing 
the  life  of  John  L.  Sullivan  in  another  metrical  effusion,  he  takes  off 
his  hat  to  the  working  members  of  the  "Fourth  Estate"  and  says 
"Hail !" 

Few  men  in  other  walks  of  life  have  had  such  intimate  relations 
with  the  newspaper  world  as  Chaloner.  The  many  vicissitudes  of  his 
fortunes,  and  his  activities  since  he  came  to  reside  in  Virginia  have 
kept  him  in  print  and  have  brought  him  into  close  contact  with  the 
men  who  gather  and  edit  the  news.  Whether  he  was  righting  to  have 
something  "kept  out  of  the  papers,"  or  whether  he  was  arguing  to  have 
something  "put  in,"  the  author  of  "Who's  Loony  Now?"  got  close  to 
the  powers  that  be,  and  every  newspaper  office  in  Richmond  has  known 
his  presence. 

Here's  his  greeting  to  the  newspaper  men.  He  calls  it  "Journal- 
ists," although  such  things  are  almost  extinct  in  the  United  States,  and 
thrive  chiefly  in  London  and  Paris. 

All  hail,  ye  doughty  wielders  o'  The  Pen ! 

Ye  bold  swashbucklers  o'  the  daily  press. 
I  hold  ye  high  amongst  the  sons  of  men ; 

I  honor  the  talent  that  ye  all  possess. 
For  talent  ye  must  have  or  ye'd  starve  to  death. 

On  newspapers  the  fittest  sole  survives. 
The  race  is  to  the  swift — the  deep  of  breath. 

The  strength  o'  your  good  sword-arms  saves  your  lives. 
The  press  today's  the  arena  of  the  world. 

There,  fame  and  gold — in  time— reward  each  sword. 
Which,  when  the  daily  dust  of  combat's  curl'd. 

Can  unerring  strike  upon  the  gleaming  word ! 
Once  more  all  hail!  And  all  prosperity. 

All  in  the  day's  work  once  you  "roasted"  me. 


APPENDIX  17 


The  "American" 

Baltimore,  Maryland,  May  12,  1913 

"SCORPIO." 

("Scorpio."    Sonnets  by  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,    Published  by  the 
Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.) 

The  author  prides  himself  on  the  fact  that  he  is  a  hard  and  terrible 
hitter.  Indeed,  he  assures  us  that  he  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
you  can  put  a  wicked  man  "to  sleep"  with  a  sonnet  in  pretty  much  the 
same  way  that  a  prize  fighter  puts  his  opponent  to  sleep  with  a  finished 
blow.  And  not  only  does  Mr.  Chaloner  believe  in  what  we  may  term 
the  "sonnetorial  fist,"  but  he  believes  also  in  whips  and  scorpions,  for 
the  cover  of  his  book  is  decorated  with  an  angry-looking,  seven-thonged 
scourge  and  he  dubs  the  whole  effort  "Scorpio." 


The  "News  and  Observer" 

Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  June  3,  1913 

MR.  CHALONER'S  BOOK  OF  SONNETS. 

Mr.  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  of  "Merry  Mills,"  Cobham,  Va., 
has  brought  out  a  new  book,  a  collection  of  sonnets  under  the  title 
"Scorpio."  Mr.  Chaloner,  who  has  devoted  himself  to  a  reformation 
of  the  lunacy  laws  in  various  States,  is  remembered  as  a  visitor  to 
Raleigh  during  the  1913  session  of  the  North  Carolina  General  As- 
sembly. 


The  "Courier-Journal" 

Louisville,  Kentucky,  Hay  10,  1913 

("Scorpio."      By   J.    A.    Chaloner.      Published    by    Palmetto    Press, 
Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.) 

Sinewy,  thoughtful  sonnets,  stinging  to  the  reader,  with  occasional 
ironies.    Affairs  and  men  are  the  themes  handled  in  virile  fashion. 


i8  APPENDIX 


The  "Times" 

Louisville,  Kentucky,  May  30,  1913 

("Scorpio,"  by  J.  A.  Chaloner,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. :  The  Palmetto 
Press.) 

Mr.  Chaloner  has  used  the  sonnet  to  flay  some  personal  enemies 
and  a  few  public  evils,  which  he  does  in  a  very  successful  way.  In  fact 
he  gives  them  some  whips,  scorpions  and  knock-out  blows  with  a 
vengeance.  The  volume  was  brought  out  in  1907,  but  on  the  account 
of  some  personal  difficulties  with  many  enemies,  he  was  not  able  to  get 
it  before  the  public  until  the  late  date. 


The  "News-Scimitar" 

Memphis,  Tennessee,  May  7,  1913 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner  has  published  another  book  containing 
several  acrid  essays  and  forty-seven  sequential  sonnets,  in  which  he 
deftly  removes  the  epidermis  of  all  those  whom  he  imagines  have  ever 
done  him  a  wrong.  Many  of  the  lines  are  really  clever,  and  in  read- 
ing them  one  cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that  no  matter  how  bitter 
he  may  be  he  has  been  given  ample  reason  for  it. 


The  "News" 

Savannah,  Georgia,  May  SB,  1913 

("Scorpio."    By  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,   Roanoke   Rapids,   N.   C. : 
Palmetto  Press.   Cloth;  price,  $1.50,  postpaid.) 

A  collection  of  sonnets.  Mr.  Chaloner's  personal  history  would 
make  his  sonnets  interesting  if  they  were  not  so  in  themselves.  Those 
who  know  the  history  should  find  the  sonnets  and  the  notes  upon  them 
exceedingly  entertaining. 

The  "Telegram" 

Portland,  Oregon,  May  10,  1913 

("Scorpio."    By  J.  A.   Chaloner.     Price,  $1.50  net.    Published  by  the 
Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.) 

This  is  number  one  of  a  quarterly  publication  of  sonnets  in  the 
Shakespearean  form,  "ending  in  a  rhyming  climax — a  rhythmic  knock- 


APPENDIX  19 


out  blow."  This  form  of  sonnet  appeals  to  the  author  as  "a  medium 
for  flaying  fools  and  rogues."  The  author  in  a  most  diverting  pro- 
logue says:  "As  there  are  over  a  million  dollars  in  cold  cash  behind 
the  author,  in  the  shape  of  property  in  his  name,  and  as  he  has  no 
intention  of  practicing  law  nor  devoting  himself  strictly  to  business, 
it  should  be  evident  to  the  shortest-sighted  reader  that  'Scorpio'  has 
come  to  stay."  The  sonnets  are  vigorous,  not  to  say  violent,  and  their 
topics  range.  An  appendix  contains  references  to  the  alleged  rail- 
roading of  the  author  to  Bloomingdale  Asylum,  and  a  bitter  allusion  to 
the  hatred  of  kin  quoted  from  Tacitus  indicates  his  point  of  view. 
Perhaps  the  volume  is  intended  as  an  answer  to  the  justly  celebrated 
question,  "Who's  looney  now?" 


The  "Oregonian" 

Portland,  Oregon,  May  18,  1913 

("Scorpio,"    by    J.    A.    Chaloner,    $1.50,    Palmetto    Press,    Roanoke 
Rapids,  N.  C.) 

Mr.  Chaloner  is  the  hero  of  an  escape  from  Bloomingdale  Asylum, 
New  York,  and  one  of  the  most  sensational  of  writers  and  poets.  He 
is  rich  in  money  matters,  is  his  own  "boss,"  and  was  a  friend  of  the 
notorious  Stanford  White,  who  was  killed  by  Harry  Thaw.  The  son- 
nets extend  to  93  pages,  are  written  in  near-vitriol,  and  land  sledge- 
hammer blows  at  enemies  and  others. 


The  "San  Francisco  Chronicle" 

San  Francisco,  California,  May  18,  1913 

"SCORPIO." 
(Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.;  Palmetto  Press;  price,  $1.50.) 

"Scorpio"  is  a  very  apt  title  for  the  collection  of  forty-seven  son- 
nets issued  by  John  Armstrong  Chaloner.  Most  of  the  poems  are 
more  fully  explained  in  a  very  lengthy  appendix  setting  forth  the  facts 
which  justify  the  author  in  using  language  generally  reserved  for 
occasions  when  no  one  happens  to  be  listening.  Chaloner  observes 
that  he  is  treading  humbly  after  his  four  masters — Juvenal,  Voltaire, 


APPENDIX 


Swift  and  Byron.  "We  aim — however  lowly — at  the  strength  of  Juve- 
nal, the  keenness  of  Voltaire,  the  fierceness  of  Swift,  and  the  form 
of  Byron."  That  he  attains  much  of  his  aim  cannot  be  denied,  since, 
if  short  on  the  strength  of  Juvenal  and  the  form  of  Byron,  he  is 
long  on  the  fierceness  of  Swift.  He  admires  Swinburne,  Shakespeare 
and  John  L.  Sullivan,  but  is  death  on  Dr.  Osier  and  Bernard  Shaw. 
The  book  must  be  read  to  be  appreciated. 


The  "State" 

Columbia,  South  Carolina,  May  10,  1913 

We  have  received  a  book  of  poems  from  Colonel  John  Armstrong 
Chaloner,  and  from  one  of  his  lyric  gems  we  quote  the  following 
stanza : 

"All  hail,  ye  doughty  wielders  o'  the  pen, 
Ye  bold  swashbucklers  o'  the  daily  press; 
I  hold  ye  high  among  the  sons  of  men, 
I  honor  the  talent  that  ye  all  possess." 

We  care  not  what  those  silly  New  York  courts  hold.  Colonel 
Chaloner  is  as  sane  as  he  ever  was. 


The  "Journal" 

Lincoln,  Nebraska,  May  7,  1913 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  of  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C,  is  a  new 
one  on  us.  He  seeks  favor  as  a  satirist,  and  does  so  in  a  book  of 
sonnets  about  the  size  of  an  academic  dictionary,  which  the  Palmetto 
Press  offers  to  a  waiting  world  at  $1.50  per  copy,  postpaid.  In  a  some- 
what copious  appendix  we  gather  the  fact,  or  intimation,  that  the  poet 
has  suffered  in  his  day,  and  is  not  feeling  as  well  satisfied  now  as  one 
should  who  admits  he  is  financially  on  easy  street,  if  not  mentally  so. 
Without  using  any  name,  he  implies  that  due  to  a  conspiracy,  care- 
fully planned  and  skilfully  executed,  he  was  lured  from  his  old  Vir- 
ginia home  and  landed  in  a  New  York  bughouse  from  which  he  made 
a  get-away  after  four  years  of  unmerited  confinement.  The  full  par- 
ticulars will  appear  in  another  book — but  that  is  another  matter.  No 
wonder  John  bumps  the  bunch  in  his  salutatory  after  this  fashion : 


APPENDIX 


"The  nameless  folly  of  the  human  race, 
Its  cruel  selfishness  and  trackless  guile, 
Make  me  ashamed  at  sight  of  human  face—- 
That stamping  ground  for  treachery  and  wile. 
The  smirking  smile  of  callow,  empty  youth, 
The  ripe  pomposity  of  hoary  age, 
The  shaded  gleam  of  manhood's  lustful  tooth, 
Each  plays  its  part  upon  its  petty  stage. 
Seduction,  lying,  thieving,  each  in  turn — 
A  murder  here  and  there  and  then  a  rape — 
Each  needing  only  that  temptation  burn 
And  hold  fair  chance  of  ultimate  escape. 
Exceptions  to  said  rule  exist,  'tis  true; 
No  such  exception  doth  exist  in  you." 


APPENDIX 


The  "Evening  World" 

New  York  City,  April  18,  1913 

Poet  Chaloner's  New  Verses  Hold  Some 
"Hot  Stuff!" 


'BARD  OF  BLOOMINGDALE"  TAKES  HOT  RAP  AT  ROCKE- 
FELLER AND  OTHERS. 


HE  CALLS  IT  "SCORPIO/ 


LAUDS     JOHN     L.     SULLIVAN     AND     TAKES     CAUSTIC     FLING     AT     "DIAMOND 
HORSESHOE." 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  once  the  poet  laureate  of  Bloomingdale, 
but  in  later  years  content  to  be  only  the  Roaring  Rhapsodist  of  Roanoke 
Rapids,  N.  C.,  has  pushed  George  Bernard  Shaw  under  the  pile  driver 
and  tripped  Rudyard  Kipling  onto  the  skids.  Undisputed  champion  of 
"the  rhyming  knock-out"  Mr.  Chaloner  has  just  sent  broadcast  from 
his  comfortable  retreat  in  the  Old  Dominion  his  trenchant  volume  of 
cubist  verses  bearing  the  significant  title  "Scorpio." 

Mr.  Chaloner  will  be  remembered  in  New  York  as  the  author  of 
that  neat  little  brochure  "Who's  Looney  Now?"  dedicated  to  the  at- 
that-time-husband  of  Mile.  Lina  Cavalieri,  and  of  the  more  recent  work 
on  exploration  entitled  "Hell."  This  latest  message  from  Roanoke  was 
published  in  England  in  1908,  but  because  of  several  pending  suits  in 
American  courts  which  might  be,  according  to  the  poet's  own  admis- 
sions, affected  disadvantageously  by  the  appearance  of  his  verses, 
America  has  had  to  wait  in  patience  until  the  present  moment. 

AUTHOR  TAKES   A   HOT  RAP  AT  MR.  ROCKEFELLER. 

It  may  readily  be  seen  from  a  perusal  of  the  "Prologue"  to  the 
Chaloner  sheaf  of  sonnets,  that  the  Roaring  Rhapsodist  of  Roanoke 
Rapids,  N.  C.,  possesses  nothing  but  charity  for  all  mankind,  and  that 
he  maintains  a  dairy  for  the  milk  of  human  kindness  on  his  estate. 
For,  touching  upon  the  inspiration  for  his  songs,  Mr.  Chaloner  refers 
thus  to  a  well  known  philanthropist : 


APPENDIX  23 


"We  shall  take  pleasure  in  pointing  out  how  that  bald-headed 
old  rogue,  Rockefeller,  is  attempting  two  impossible  things,  to  wit : 
First  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  by  prodigious  gifts  to 
education,  with  the  veiled  hope  of  educating  the  rising  generation  to 
his  nefarious  way  of  thinking;  and  the  flaring,  flaunting,  brazen-faced 
hope  of  buying  the  public's  forgiveness." 

Since  there  is  a  million  dollars  cold  cash  behind  the  author,  and 
he  is  publishing  "Scorpio"  at  his  own  expense — take  it  from  his  own 
assurance  in  the  prologue — this  book  of  verse*  is  "a  medium  for 
flaying  fools  that  in  concentration,  swiftness  of  action  and  complete- 
ness of  results  beats  any  other  known  form  of  satirical  flagellation." 

HE    PHILOSOPHIZES    ON    THE    "DIAMOND    HORSESHOE." 

The  sweet  singer,  who  once  made  the  mournful  halls  of  Blooming- 
dale  to  resound  with  his  gladsome  lilt — that  was  before  he  went  away 
from  Bloomingdale  without  leaving  his  P.  P.  C.  card — says  right  at 
the  beginning  of  his  foreword  that  there  have  only  been  four  other 
"masters"  who  possessed  the  metrical  punch  and  rhyming  knock-out 
that  are  his :  Juvenal,  Voltaire,  Swift  and  Byron. 

Now  to  this  list  add  the  name  of  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  a 
member  of  this  club,  who  will  meet  all  comers  at  the  fourteen-line 
sonnet,  Shakespeare  rules  and  no  hitting  eleventh  syllable  of  the  son- 
net line. 

Here's  a  gentle  bit  of  kindly  observation  and  unctuous  philosophy 
drawn  from  observation  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  season. 

THE   DEVIL'S    HORSE-SHOE. 

A  fecund  sight  for  a  Philosopher — 

Rich  as  Golconda's  mine  in  lessons  rare — 
That  gem-bedizzen'd   "horse-shoe"   at  th'   Opera 

Replete  with  costly  hags  and  matrons  fair! 
His  votaresses  doth  Mammon  there  array 

His  Amazonian  Phalanx  dread  to  face! 
To  Mammon  there  do  they  their  homage  pay, 

Spangl'd  with  jewels,  satins,  silks  and  lace. 
Crones  whose  old  bosoms  within  their  corsets  creak; 

Beldames  whose  slightest  glance  would  fright  a  horse. 
Ghouls — when  they  speak  one  hears  the  grave-mole  squeak — 

Their  escorts  parvenus  of  features  coarse. 
A  rich  array  of  Luxury  and  Vice ! 

But  spite  of  them,  the  music's  very  nice. 


"This  should  read  "the  Shakspearean  form  of  sonnet.' 


24  APPENDIX 


JOHN   L.    SULLIVAN   GETS    A   BIG   BOOST. 

That  the  former  brother-in-law  of  Lina  Cavalieri  is  no  meek  and 
milky  molly-coddle  is  graphically  demonstrated  by  his  sonnet  in  honor 
of  the  nuptials  of  John  L.  Sullivan,  a  well-known  sporting  figure. 
Under  the  title,  "The  Apotheosis  or  the  Dead  Game  Sport's  Lament," 
the  roaring  Roanoker  trills  this  diapason  lay: 

O !  for  a  day  of  Lawrence  Sullivan ! 

Just  one  day  of  just  one  hour — nothing  more. 

"Jeff,"  "Fitz,"  Ruhlin,  Sharkey  at  four  rounds  per  man, 

In  succession  sev'rally  would  bite  the  floor ! 

Each  into  sweet  oblivion  then  would  float ! 

Propell'd  by  John's  strong  arm  which  ne'er  did  tire. 

Each  in  John  L.  would  then  his  master  note — 

John  L.  the  paragon  of  "P.  R.'s"  empire ! 

For  twelve  years  he  fought  as  man  ne'er  fought  before; 

As  John  L.  fought,  ne'er  will  man  fight  again ; 

For  with  him  the  love  of  battle  counted  more 

Than  what  rules  nowadays — the  love  of  gain. 

John  L. !    Th'  Imperial  Roman,  now  I  sing ! 

Great  John  L.  Sullivan,  the  Prize-Ring  King ! 


APPENDIX  25 


The  "Evening  Journal" 

New  Yorfc  City,  April  28,  1913 

Chaloner  Flays  N.  Y.  Society  in  Book  of  Verses 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  author  of  the  famous  quip,  "Who's 
looney  now?"  and  a  number  of  other  snappy  productions,  has  writ- 
ten a  book  that  will  interest  New  Yorkers  because  it  gets  its  action 
from  the  gilded  circle,  whence  Chaloner  was  sent  to  Bloomingdale. 
"Scorpio,"  a  book  of  sonnets  that  are  modeled  after  the  work  of  the 
late  William  Shakespeare,  is  his  latest  offering. 

Of  course,  Shakespeare  has  no  kick  coming,  because  everybody 
knows  that  he  rewrote  Richard  III  from  More's  history,  and  the 
documents  of  a  cardinal,  and  always  went  to  the  "morgue"  (news- 
paper term  for  reference  department)  when  he  wanted  the  features  of 
a  new  play. 

But  that  is  neither  here  nor  there.  It  is  the  "Scorpio"  that  stings, 
and  back  at  Merry  Mills,  Cobham,  ya.,  Chaloner  is  enjoying  the  swish- 
ing of  the  tail  of  his  literary  animal.  After  Chaloner  got  out  of 
Bloomingdale  half  a  dozen  years  ago,  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  where 
he  had  the  officials  of  a  sanitarium  observe  him  for  six  months.  Then 
he  took  their  word  that  he  was  sane,  and  went  to  Virginia  to  live. 

In  his  new  work  he  pays  particular  attention  to  the  smart  set  at 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  under  the  title  "The  Devil's  Horse- 
shoe," which  is  intended  but  dimly  to  becloud  the  golden  horseshoe. 
Thus  he  sings : 

A  fecund  sight  for  the  philosopher- 
Rich  as  Golconda's  mine  in  lessons  rare — 
That  gem  bedizn'd  "horseshoe"  at  th'  Opera. 

Replete  with  costly  hags  and  matrons  fair! 
His  votaresses  doth  Mammon  there  array, 

His  Amazonian  Phalanx  dread  to  face ! 
To  Mammon  there  do  they  their  homage  pay; 

Spangl'd  with  jewels,  satins,  silks  and  lace. 
Crones  whose  old  bosoms  in  their  corsets  creak; 

Beldames  whose  slightest  glance  would  fright  a  horse: 
Ghouls — when  they  speak,  one  hears  the  grave  mole  squeak — 

Their  escorts  parvenus  of  feature  coarse. 
A  rich  array  of  Luxury  and  Vice! 

But  spite  of  them,  the  music's  very  nice. 


26  APPENDIX 


Mr.  Chaloner  uses  the  editorial  form  of  expression  in  his  book  and 
"we"  lambast  the  everlasting  lights  out  of  everything  in  sight.  In  his 
prologue  he  says: 

"We  are  guided  by  the  same  every-day  principles  of  the  educated 
man  in  the  street,  who  has  happened  to  run  across  a  medium  for 
flaying  fools  and  rogues  that,  in  concentration,  swiftness  of  action,  and 
completeness  of  result,  beats  any  other  form  of  satirical  flagellation. 
We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  Shakespearean  form  of  sonnet,  ending, 
as  it  does,  in  a  rhyming  climax — a  rhythmic  knock-out  blow." 

Chaloner  does  say  some  pleasant  things.  Take  for  example  the 
sonnet  he  calls  Journalists. 

All  hail  ye  doughty  wielders  o'  The  Pen ! 

Ye  bold  swashbucklers  o'  the  daily  press. 
I  hold  ye  high  amongst  the  sons  of  men. 

I  honor  the  talent  that  ye  all  possess. 
For  talent  ye  must  have  or  ye'd  starve  to  death. 

On  newspapers  the  fittest  sole  survives. 
That  race  is  to  the  swift — the  deep  of  breath. 

The  strength  o'  your  good  sword-arms  saves  your  lives. 
The  press  today's  the  arena  of  the  world. 

There,  fame  and  gold — in  time — reward  each  sword. 
Which,  when  the  daily  dust  of  combat's  curl'd, 

Can  unerring  strike  upon  the  gleaming  word ! 
Once  more  all  hail!  And  all  prosperity. 

All  in  the  day's  work  once  you  "roasted"  me. 

Chaloner  promises  to  strike  frequently  at  the  prominent  figures  in 
New  York  society,  and  says  that  his  book  is  but  the  first  edition  of  a 
regular  venture. 


77t£  "Morning  Telegraph" 

New  York  City,  May  5,  1913 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  in  his  ode  to  John  L.  Sullivan,  writes ; 

O!  for  a  day  of  Lawrence  Sullivan! 

Just  one  day  of  just  one  hour — nothing  more. 
Jeff,  Fitz,  Ruhlin,  Sharkey  at  four  rounds  per  man, 

In  succession  seV rally  would  bite  the  floor! 
Each  into  sweet  oblivion  then  would  float, 

Propell'd  by  John's  strong  arm,  which  ne'er  did  tire. 


APPENDIX  27 


Each  in  John  L.  would  then  his  master  note — 

John  L.,  the  paragon  of  "P.  R.'s"  empire ! 
For  twelve  years  he  fought  as  man  ne'er  fought  before; 

As  John  L.  fought  ne'er  will  man  fight  again  ; 
For  with  him  the  love  of  battle  counted  more 

Than  what  rules  nowadays — the  love  of  gain. 
John  L. !  Th'  Imperial  Roman,  now  I  sing! 

Great  John  L.  Sullivan,  the  Prize-Ring  King! 

It's  now  up  to  some  local  poet  to  counter  with  a  hymn  to  Abe 
Attell. 


APPENDIX 


The  "American" 

New  York  City,  April  29,  1913 


J.  A.  Chaloner  of  *  Who's  Looney?'  Fame  Drops 
Into  Poetry 

His   MUSE  STIRRED  INTO  LIVELY  GALLOP  BY  THOUGHTS  OF  JOHN  L. 

SULLIVAN. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  author  of  the  famous  "Who's  Looney 
Now?"  which  he  dedicated  to  his  brother,  then  husband  of  Lina 
Cavalieri,  has  produced  a  volume  of  verse  under  the  title  "Scorpio." 

A  bitter  arraignment  of  Rockefeller  is  followed  by  the  following 
eulogy  of  John  L.  Sullivan,  under  title  of  "The  Apotheosis  or  a  Dead 
Game  Sport's  Lament" 

Oh!  for  a  day  of  Lawrence  Sullivan! 

Just  one  day  of  just  one  hour — nothing  more. 
"Jeff,"  "Fitz,"  Ruhlin,  Sharkey  at  four  rounds  per  man, 

In  succession  sev'rally  would  bite  the  floor! 
Each  into  sweet  oblivion  then  would  float, 

Propell'd  by  John's  strong  arm  which  ne'er  did  tire. 
Each  in  John  L.  would  then  his  master  note — 

John  L.,  the  paragon  of  "P.  R.'s"  empire! 
For  twelve  years  he  fought  as  man  never  fought  before ; 

As  John  L.  fought,  ne'er  will  man  fight  again; 
For  with  him  the  love  of  battle  counted  more 

Than  what  rules  now-a-days — the  love  of  gain. 
John  L. !  Th'  Imperial  Roman,  now  I  sing! 

Great  John  L.  Sullivan,  the  Prize-Ring  King! 


APPENDIX  29 


The  "Washington  Times" 

Washington,  Dictrict  of  Columbia,  May  31,  1913 

HERE'S  A  BOOK. 

("Scorpio,"  by  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  published  by  the  Palmetto 
Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C.) 

Any  one  wishing  information  of  any  kind  upon  John  Armstrong 
Chaloner,  whether  it  be  on  his  lineage,  or  concerned  with  his  most 
sensational  newspaper  career,  or  in  relation  to  his  ability  as  an  author, 
all  is  to  be  found  between  the  covers  of  the  little  book  of  sonnets 
called  "Scorpio."  These  sonnets  constitute  the  main  body  of  the  book, 
while  an  explanatory  prologue  and  a  generous  appendix  give  such  in- 
formation upon  the  author  and  his  works  as  the  reader  is  not  able  to 
glean  from  the  sonnets. 

The  prologue  is  really  a  word  to  critics,  special  attention  being 
given  to  a  definition  of  the  press,  and  to  the  purpose  and  reasons  of  the 
author  for  writing  the  sonnets. 

The  appendix,  of  forty-nine  pages,  contains  reprints  from  news- 
papers in  which  the  actions  of  the  author  have  been  sensationalized, 
explanations  of  the  sonnets  in  detail,  and  divers  other  bits  of  interest 
concerning  the  life,  ancestors  and  publications  of  John  Armstrong 
Chaloner. 

Of  the  poems  and  their  style  the  author  has  said :  "We  aim  .  .  . 
at  the  strength  of  Juvenal,  the  keenness  of  Voltaire,  the  fierceness  of 
Swift  and  the  form  of  Byron."  Like  many  others,  an  intense  personal 
grudge  against  the  world  in  general,  prevents  other  than  a  partial  suc- 
cess for  the  author.  Some  of  the  lighter  sonnets,  on  "Butterflies"  and 
"Midsummer"  for  instance,  attain  a  much  higher  order  than  those 
on  drastic  subjects.  A  consistent  over  use  of  the  apostrophe  is  unneces- 
sary and  annoying. 

"The  Academy,"  London,  England,  says :  "  .  .  .  his  book  is 
well  worth  possessing." 

It  is. 


30  APPENDIX 


The  "World" 

New  York  City,  May  S$,  1913 


Chaloner,  to  War  on  Lunacy  Laws,  Wants  More 
Cash 


RICH   FUGITIVE  FROM   ASYLUM   WILL   ASK   COURT   FOR 

$15,000  INCOME  INCREASE  SO  HE  CAN 

SPREAD  HIS  BOOKS. 


HE'D  ALSO  SPEAK  IN  His  OWN  MASS  MEETING. 


CONTEMPLATES    MAGAZINE   IN    WHICH    TO    AIR   IDEAS— RAPS    HIS    BROTHERS, 
THE    CHANLERS. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  who  is  legally  insane  in  New  York  and 
legally  sane  in  Virginia,  will  break  into  the  courts  once  more  when  his 
attorney,  Frederick  A.  Ware,  of  No.  43  Cedar  Street,  files  today  in 
the  Supreme  Court  a  petition  asking  that  Chaloner's  income  be  in- 
creased from  $17,000  to  $32,000  annually. 

Chaloner  has  been  fighting  for  one  thing  or  another  ever  since  he 
escaped  from  the  Bloomingdale  Asylum  in  1900  and  fled  to  his  beautiful 
Virginia  estate,  Merry  Mills,  at  Cobham. 

After  setting  forth  that  he  is  unquestionably  "the  authority  upon 
lunacy  legislation  throughout  the  world,"  and  attaching  to  the  papers 
his  book  "Lunacy  Law  of  the  World,"  along  with  a  large  number  of 
press  clippings  lauding  the  book,  the  petitioner  states  he  is  a  great 
grandson  of  the  first  John  Jacob  Astor,  and  gives  a  voluminous  account 
of  his  troubles. 

ACCUSES  TWO  OF  HIS  BROTHERS. 

He  declares  he  was  spirited  to  Bloomingdale  by  the  late  Stanford 
White,  und  alleges  his  brothers,  Winthrop  Astor  Chanler  and  Lewis 
Stuyvesant  Chanler,  were  parties  to  the  plan.  Chaloner  is  particu- 
larly incensed  because  at  Bloomingdale  he  was  forced  to  pay  $100  a 
week  for  "a  two-room  cell  with  bath  attached"  and  $30  a  month  for 
an  Irish  keeper. 


APPENDIX  31 


Apparently  with  the  idea  of  impressing  the  court  that  he  should 
be  adjudged  sane  in  New  York  as  well  as  in  Virginia,  the  petitioner 
quotes  innumerable  authorities  on  insanity  and  a  multitude  of  court 
decisions  on  his  own  and  other  cases.  Once  he  compares  his  case  to 
that  of  Christ,*  but  notes  that  Christ  had  a  chance  to  defend  him- 
self, whereas  he,  Chaloner,  was  prevented  from  doing  so  by  our 
insanity  laws. 

NAMES   BOOKS    HE   HAS    WRITTEN. 

Getting  down  to  the  real  reason  why  he  must  have  an  increased 
allowance,  Chaloner  says  he  is  the  author  of  several  books  which  would 
have  a  wide  circulation  provided  he  could  properly  advertise  them. 
One  of  these  is  his  brief  in  the  case  of  Chaloner  against  Thomas  T. 
Sherman,  a  committee  of  his  person  and  estate,  and  another  "Four 
Years  Behind  the  Bars  of  Bloomingdale."  Then  there  is  "a  book  of 
sonnets,  mostly  satires,"  which  came  from  the  press  in  1908.  "Hell" 
and  "Scopio"  were  later  efforts. 

"Said  books  did  not  have,  and  could  not  have,  any  sale,"  the  peti- 
tion cites,  "for  the  _reason  that  your  petitioner  was  the  only  one  who 
could  advertise  them,  and  this  he  did  not  have  money  to  do.  This 
learned  court  knows  that  unless  one  can  bring  his  wares  to  the  notice 
of  buyers,  buyers  will  not  notice  said  wares.  Therefore,  without  ad- 
vertising there  is  no  possible  sale  for  any  publication  whatever." 

"ROBBED  OF  SIXTEEN  YEARS  OF  LIFE." 

Having  been  robbed  of  sixteen  years  of  his  life  by  the  "villainous 
actions  of  his  family,"  Chaloner  holds  he  is  entitled  to  those  mental, 
intellectual  and  physical  comforts  he  has  failed  to  gain,  though  _  he 
has  battled  hard  enough  to  acquire  them.  The  mental  and  physical 
comforts  desired  he  names  as  the  financial  means  to  sell  the  books 
already  published,  and  cash  with  which  to  bring  forth  a  second  edition 
of  his  work  on  lunacy.  The  entire  first  edition,  he  sets  forth,  was 
absorbed  by  leading  libraries  of  the  country  or  distributed  among 
leading  lawyers  of  the  author's  acquaintance. 

"Your  petitioner,"  he  says,  "formed  a  solemn  vow  while  in  Bloom- 
ingdale that  he  would  devote  every  year  of  his  life — upon  his  escape 
therefrom — and  every  dollar  of  his  income  to  the  purging  of  the  foul 
ways  of  lunacy  legislation  in,  sad  to  tell,  about  40  per  cent,  of  the 
States  of  this  great  nation."  No  better  way  to  accomplish  this  end 
occurs  to  him  than  to  advertise  his  book  on  lunacy.  This  having  been 
accomplished  and  he  having  defeated  Mr.  Sherman  in  a  case  pending 


•Legal  aspects  only. 


32  APPENDIX 


in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals,  he  purposes  to  travel 
about  the  country  addressing  legislative  committees. 

Concerning  "Four  Years  Behind  the  Bars,"  which  he  wishes  to 
spread  broadcast  for  the  good  it  will  do,  he  says : 

"Nothing  can  prove  more  clearly  to  the  lay  mind  the  dangers  to 
liberty,  property,  health  and  happiness  lurking  in  the  shadows  of  illegal 
lunacy  laws  than  this  counterpart  of  Charles  Reade's  epochal  novel, 
'Very  Hard  Cash,'  which  revolutionized  the  treatment  of  lunatics  in- 
side the  insane  asylums  of  Great  Britain  and  purged  them  of  brutality. 

"In  this  connection  your  petitioner  would  greatly  like  to  cultivate 
his  newly  discovered  talent  of  shooting  folly  as  it  flies,  in  correctly 
built  sonnets.  The  times  are  not  such  as  to  be  devoid  of  marks  for 
the  satirist's  darts,  and  your  petitioner  respectfully  prays  the  court 
to  furnish  him  with  funds,  from  his  own  accumulated  income,  to 
push  forward  the  said  enterprise." 

Chaloner  says  that  as  soon  as  he  wins  his  case  against  Mr.  Sher- 
man he  will  finance  mass  meetings  and  publish  a  fortnightly  magazine 
in  which  he  will  denounce  the  rich  young  men  of  Richmond  who  mis- 
treat small  girls.  He  knows  he  can  hold  an  audience,  for  since  the 
first  of  last  September  he  has  addressed  meetings  in  Thompson  Hall 
and  the  Rex  Theatre  in  Richmond.  These  assemblages  he  has  called 
"The  Richmond  Mass  Meeting  Club."  The  club,  he  thinks,  should  be 
made  permanent  with  money  behind  it  that  "public  abuses  and  public 
rascals  could  be  flayed  fearlessly  and  frequently  and  the  flayings  be 
duly  spread  on  printed  records  to  be  disseminated  at  a  nominal  price, 
or  even  given  free,  among  the  plain  voters  of  the  community." 

OTHER   CITIES    WOULD   ADOPT   IDEA. 

It  occurs  to  Chaloner,  so  he  states  in  the  petition,  that  the  mass 
meeting  club  would  go  a  good  way  toward  supplementing  the  work  of 
the  police,  the  detectives  and  the  public  prosecutor.  This  idea,  he  is 
confident,  would  spread  to  other  cities  and  would  be  a  huge  success. 

In  summing  up,  Chaloner  maintains  that  even  were  he  not  to 
advertise  his  books,  his  present  allowance  is  inadequate  for  him  to 
live  in  a  manner  to  which  birth,  education  and  fortune  have  made 
him  accustomed.  He  states  he  has  two  establishments  to  keep  up — a 
town  house  in  Richmond,  where  he  spends  half  of  his  time,  and  Merry 
Mills,  where  he  spends  the  other  half.  He  has  found  that  the  labor 
of  supervising  his  case  against  Mr.  Sherman  and  looking  after  seven 
libel  suits  he  has  brought  against  newspapers  in  three  cities  "has 
dragged  him  down  so  that  his  health  demands  frequent  changes  of 
scene  and  absence  from  law  books."  Furthermore,  he  has  had  an 
affection  of  the  spine  since  he  was  confined  in  Bloomingdale. 


APPENDIX  33 


CONSIDERS    HIS    DEMAND    MODEST. 

If  he  is  granted  the  increased  allowance,  Chaloner  will,  he  says, 
spend  one-half  the  first  year  on  himself  and  pay  off  his  debts  with 
the  other  half.  As  there  is  a  surplus  of  income  amounting  to  $i7',ooo, 
he  declares  the  matter  can  be  easily  arranged.  He  considers  his  de- 
mands modest  in  view  of  the  fact  that  from  the  time  of  his  majority 
until  his  troubles  began  he  had  an  income  of  $24,000  a  year. 

Chaloner's  share  in  his  father's  estate  was  originally  given  as 
$1,500,000.  He  tells  the  court  his  property  comprises  real  estate 
stocks,  promissory  notes,  mortgages,  claims  and  a  paid-up  life  insur- 
ance policy.  This  was  derived  from  his  father,  his  grandmother, 
Elizabeth  Stuyvesant  Chanler,  and  his  grandaunt,  Laura  Astor  Delano. 
The  twenty-seven  pieces  of  realty  include  No.  298  Broadway,  which 
is  subject  to  a  mortgage;  a  villa  site  of  365  acres  in  Rhinebeck  and 
a  small  farm  in  Dutchess  County.  There  are  also  the  4OO-acre  farm 
at  Cobham  and  a  3OO-acre  farm  at  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. 

AMELIE  RIVES   DIVORCED   HIM. 

In  1888  Chaloner  married  Amelie  Rives.  They  separated  in 
seven  years  and  in  1895  Mrs.  Chaloner  was  given  a  divorce  on  the 
ground  of  incompatibility  of  temperament.  A  year  later  she  mar- 
ried Prince  Troubetzkoy,  a  painter  and  member  of  an  old  Russian 
family. 


34  APPENDIX 


The  "American" 

New  York  City,  May  %k,  1913 


Chaloner  Asks  Funds  to  Advertise  Books 


FORMER    JOHN    ARMSTRONG    CHANLER    WANTS    INCOME    INCREASED    TO 
$32,000. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  through  his  attorney,  will  file  in  the 
Supreme  Court  today  an  application  asking  that  his  income  be  in- 
creased from  $17,000  to  $32,000.  Chaloner  is  legally  insane  in  New 
York  State  and  sane  in  Virginia.  Since  his  escape  years  ago  from 
Bloomingdale  Asylum  he  changed  his  name  from  Chanler  to  Chaloner. 

In  his  application  he  states  that  he  needs  the  money  to  advertise 
the  books  he  has  written,  and  that  is  the  only  way  they  can  be  brought 
before  the  public.  The  books  include  his  views  on  lunacy  and  lunacy 
laws  and  a  book  of  poems. 


The  "Times" 

Jacksonville,  Florida,  May  STt,  1913 

Another  crusade  is  proclaimed  in  a  country  full  of  Holy  Wars : 
John  Armstrong  Chaloner  will  make  war  on  our  lunacy  laws ! 


The  "Telegraph" 

New  York  City,  May  25,  1913 

Mr.  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  requests  that  his  income  be  increased 
from  $17,000  to  $32,000  a  year.  This  ought  to  enable  him  to  double  his 
publicity  expenditures. 


APPENDIX  35 


The  "Sim" 

Baltimore,  Maryland,  June  I,  1913 


Chaloner  Needs  Money 


WILL  ASK  THAT  HIS  $16,000  YEARLY  INCOME  BE  DOUBLED. 


To  IMPROVE  INSANITY  LAWS. 


AUTHOR    OF    "WHO'S    LOONEY    NOW?"    WANTS    TO    REPUBLISH    HIS    POEMS- 
BACKS  GIRLS'  CLUB. 


NEW  YORK,  June  I. — John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  author  of  "Who's 
Looney  Now?",  will  appear  by  counsel  tomorrow  in  the  special  term 
of  the  Supreme  Court  and  move  to  have  his  annual  income  of  $16,000 
doubled. 

Frederick  A.  Ware,  a  former  Assemblyman,  is  acting  as  Chaloner's 
attorney,  and  will  make  the  motion  on  the  ground  that  his  client's 
estate  is  increasing  every  year,  and  now  earns  a  yearly  income  of 

$112,000. 

Ware  yesterday  told  why  Chaloner  wishes  the  increase,  and  inci- 
dentally gave  an  interesting  account  of  Chaloner's  life  in  Virginia, 
where  he  is  practically  an  exile,  as  he  has  been  adjudged  insane  in  the 
New  York  courts. 

Ware  will  tell  the  court  that  Chaloner  wants  the  larger  allowance 
to  pay  the  heirs  of  his  former  attorneys,  who  have  since  died,  and  to 
use  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  better  legislation  regarding  insanity. 
Ware  also  said  Chaloner  had  founded  the  Mass  Meeting  Club  in 
Richmond,  which  is  devoting  itself  to  aiding  young  girls.  Chaloner, 
the  lawyer  said,  would  like  more  money  to  spend  in  this  work. 

Chaloner  also  wants  $1,000  to  publish  another  edition  of  his  book 
of  poems. 

It  was  learned  yesterday  Chaloner  has  a  strong  aversion  to  Tam- 
many Hall.  It  is  because  of  this  aversion,  it  was  said,  Chaloner  refused 
to  continue  his  fight  for  freedom  in  the  New  York  courts. 

"Even  though  Chaloner  should  obtain  his  liberty  in  this  State," 
said  Ware  yesterday,  "I  feel  quite  positive  he  would  not  live  here. 
He  is  perfectly  happy  in  Virginia.  Everybody  down  there  loves  and 


36  APPENDIX 


respects  him.  In  fact,  everyone  hopes  he  will  not  succeed  in  having 
the  committee  appointed  to  care  for  his  person  and  estate  withdrawn, 
for  fear  he  will  leave  Virginia. 

"Chaloner  divides  his  time  between  his  estate,  Merry  Mills,  the 
Westmoreland  Club  and  Richmond.  Since  he  organized  the  Mass 
Meeting  Club  he  has  spent  about  half  of  his  time  in  Richmond.  Any 
move  by  Chaloner  to  obtain  his  freedom  in  this  State  will  be  bitterly 
contested. 

"If  he  should  marry  in  Virginia,  and  there  is  nothing  there  which 
can  prevent  him,  and  should  have  any  children,  under  the  terms  of 
his  mother's  will  his  share  of  the  estate  will  revert  to  his  issue.  As 
he  has  not  been  able  to  spend  the  income  from  his  part  of  the  Chanler 
millions,  his  share  has  grown.  If  he  dies  without  children  the  money 
will  be  divided  among  his  relatives. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Chaloner  is  no  more  peculiar  than  any  man 
who  is  artistic  or  a  genius,  and  he  is  both.  He  is  very  generous. 
Although  he  has  been  divorced  from  Amelie  Rives  for  years,  and  she 
has  since  married,  he  allows  her  an  annual  income  of  $3,600." 

Thomas  T.  Sherman,  of  the  law  firm  of  Evarts,  Choate  &  Sher- 
man, is  the  committee  appointed  to  care  for  the  person  and  estate  of 
Chaloner.  Joseph  Choate,  Jr.,  of  that  firm,  probably  will  oppose  Chal- 
oner's  motion  for  an  increase  of  income. 


The  "Inquirer" 

Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  May  6,  1913 
Sonnet  16,  page  16. 


We  understand  that  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  has  published  a 
book  of  poems,  which  leads  us  to  suspect  that  that  New  York  com- 
mission in  lunacy  was  not  so  far  wrong  after  all. 


The  "Inquirer" 

Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  May  13,  191S 

Right  on  top  of  the  statement  of  that  alienist  that  nine-tenths  of 
the  poets  are  crazy,  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  had  to  come  out  with 
the  announcement  that  he  has  written  a  whole  book  of  "pomes." 


APPENDIX  37 


The  "Post-Standard" 

Syracuse,  New  York,  May  3,  1913 
Sonnet  17,  page  17. 

"THE  SYRACUSE  'POST-STANDARD'  OIL."* 
"Scorpio,"  by  J.  A.   Chalpner,  sonnets  of  a  North  Carolina  poet, 
who  has  the  distinction  of  being  legally  a  lunatic  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  some  of  whose  poems  should  be  treated  editorially  in  the 
New  York  Sun.       Roanoke   Rapids,   Palmetto   Press,   $1.50. 


Sonnet  21,  page  21. 

"SHAW  ONCE  MORE."  * 

The  phrase  here — "against  him  fence" — needs  explanation.  It  is 
common  among  Southern  farmers  to  use  the  expression  to  "fence 
against"  where  "building  a  fence  about"  or  "keeping  a  fence  in  re- 
pair" is  meant.  The  phrase  is  used  particularly  with  regard  to  stallions, 
bulls,  rams  and  boars ;  which  animals  are  sometimes  given  to  a  desire 
to  "wander  from  their  own  fireside,"  in  search  of  "fresh  fields  and 
pastures  new,"  sprinkled  with  females  of  their  species.  Hence  the 
farmers  "fence  against  them."  A  stallion,  bull,  ram,  or  boar,  which  is 
particularly  hard  to  confine — which  either  jumps  his  fences,  batters 
them  down,  bores  his  way  through  them,  or  squeezes  through  inter- 
stices therein — is  looked  upon  with  a  malignant  eye  by  the  husband- 
man—he is  such  a  bore,  such  a  nuisance — and  his  price  is  often  affected 
thereby — people  being  non-desirous  of  purchasing  so  fruitful  a  source 
of  care  and  constant  anxiety,  as  what  they  universally  speak  of  as  a 
"roguish"  stallion,  a  "roguish"  bull,  a  "roguish"  boar,  or  a  "roguish" 
ram.  They  say  with  an  eye  of  death  "that  boar's  roguish — you've  got 
to  fence  against  him."  That  settles  the  boar  so  far  as  any  purchaser 
but  a  butcher  is  concerned. 


Sonnet  23,  page  23. 

"THE  SHAVING  OF  SHAG  PAT."  * 

We  hazard  the  following  word  touching  the  concluding  couplet  of 
this  sonnet — 

"Raze"  means  shaved  in  the  sense  of  being  "skinned." 
"Zingeur"  means  a  man  whose  cheek  is  made  of  zinc. 
Bien  plante  means  "stuck." 


38  APPENDIX 


The  "Illustrated  London  News" 

London,  England,  June  15,  191% 
Sonnet  24,  page  24. 

"A  PRINCE  OF  LIARS."  * 
(Sir  Sidney  Lee  on  King  Edward.) 

"In  current  criticism  of  the  new  volume  of  the  'Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography'  (Smith,  Elder  &  Company),  which  is  Volume  I  of 
the  Second  Supplement,  attention  has  been  fixed  almost  exclusively  on 
the  memoir  of  Edward  VII  by  the  editor,  Sir  Sidney  Lee.  The  volume 
contains  in  all  five  hundred  articles  on  noteworthy  persons  who  died 
between  January  22,  1901,  and  December  31,  1911,  including  Lord  Salis- 
bury, the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  Sir  Walter  Besant,  Lord  Acton,  John 
Davidson,  Governor  Eyre  and  Sir  Redvers  Buller.  The  article  on  King 
Edward,  however,  overshadows  the  rest  in  length,  interest  and  import- 
ance, and,  although  at  first  sight  received  with  general  approval,  it  has, 
on  fuller  consideration,  aroused  very  strong  criticism  in  several  quart- 
ers. The  phenomenon  of  such  a  memoir  by  a  writer  of  Sir  Sidney 
Lee's  reputation  being  denounced  as  showing  'a  deplorable  want  of 
judgment  and  tact'  and  its  publication  at  the  present  time  as  'an 
irreparable  blunder'  is  one  calculated  to  shake  the  foundations  of  liter- 
ary faith.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  memoir  does 
modify  very  considerably  the  popular  conception  of  King  Edward, 
formed  through  the  medium  of  the  press  in  recent  years,  as  the  mov- 
ing spirit  of  the  Entente  Cordiale,  and  as  the  general  Peacemaker  of 
Europe,  deliberately  using  his  personal  influence  for  political  purposes. 
There  is  apparent  in  the  memoir  a  certain  disdain  for  the  press.  Sir 
Sidney  speaks  disparagingly  of  'some  French  journalists'  who  hailed 
King  Edward  as  le  roi  pacificateur  and  the  originator  of  the  Entente, 
and  he  asserts  that  'no  direct  responsibility  for  its  initiation  or  conclu- 
sion belonged  to  him.'  Sir  Sidney  argues  that  the  King  exercised  his 
personal  charm  from  purely  social  motives,  from  a  general  desire  to 
promote  good  fellowship,  and  not  with  any  deliberate  political  intent. 
This  is  where  the  critics  disagree.  Moreover,  Sir  Sidney's  own  account 
of  King  Edward's  visit  to  Paris  in  1903,  although  apparently  intended 
to  discount  the  King's  responsibility  for  the  Entente,  really  confirms 
it,  making  clear  that  it  was  just  the  personal  touch,  the  kingly  charm, 
which  brought  about  what  diplomatic  overtures  had  failed  to  achieve, 
and  kindled  that  popular  enthusiasm  (fanned  by  the  press)  which  offi- 
cial communications  had  left  cold. 


APPENDIX  39 


"He  came"  (writes  Sir  Sidney  Lee)  "at  an  opportune  moment. 
The  French  Foreign  Minister,  M.  Delcasse,  had  for  some  time  been 
seeking  a  diplomatic  understanding  with  England,  which  should  re- 
move the  numerous  points  of  friction  between  the  two  countries  in 
Egypt,  Morocco  and  elsewhere.  The  King's  Ministers  were  respon- 
sive, and  his  visit  to  Paris,  although  it  was  paid  independently  of  the 
diplomatic  issue,  was  well  calculated  to  conciliate  French  public  opinion, 
which  was  slow  in  shedding  its  pro-Boer  venom.  On  the  King's  arrival 
the  temper  of  the  Parisian  populace  looked  doubtful  (May  i),  but  the 
King's  demeanor  had  the  best  effect,  and  in  his  reply  to  an  address 
from  the  British  Chamber  of  Commerce,  on  his  first  morning  in  Paris, 
he  spoke  so  aptly  of  the  importance  of  developing  good  relations  be- 
tween the  two  countries  that  there  was  an  immediate  renewal  of  the 
traditional  friendliness  which  had  linked  him  to  the  Parisians  for 
nearly  half  a  century. 

"Could  there  be  a  fuller  admission  than  the  above  of  the  invalu- 
able services  rendered  by  King  Edward  to  the  cause  of  international 
good-will,  or  a  more  complete  refutation  of  the  statement  that  'no 
direct  responsibility  for  its  initiation  or  conclusion  belonged  to  him'?" 


40  APPENDIX 


The  "Evening  World" 

New  York  City,  May  S,  191S 
Sonnet  32,  page  32. 

"THE  TURKEY  TROT."  * 

Who's  Looney  in  New  York  Now? 

JOHN   ARMSTRONG   CHALONER  LASHES   CITY— ITS   RICH, 
ROTTEN— ITS   DANCES,   DEBAUCHES. 


WRITING  SPECIALLY  FOR  "THE  SATURDAY  EVENING  WORLD,"  HE  SAYS 

NEW  YORK   Is   UNREAL  IN   EVERYTHING — FRIENDSHIP   A   GOLD 

BRICK,   PLEASURE   A   FEVER   AND  AGUE,   MANNERS 

INEXPRESSIBLY  VULGAR. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  brother  of  ex-Sheriff  Bob 
Chanler  of  Duchess  County,  lawyer,  traveller  and  keen  critic 
of  men  and  affairs,  holds  the  unique  distinction  of  being  a  man 
legally  insane  in  New  York  and  legally  sane  in  Virginia,  his 
present  place  of  residence.  This  is  a  distinction  of  which  Chal- 
oner is  decidedly  proud. 

He  was  once  confined  in  Bloomingdale — sent  there  as  the 
result  of  a  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  his  enemies,  Chaloner 
always  maintained — but  he  escaped  from  the  madhouse  and 
finds  himself  secure  in  Virginia  because  it  is  impossible  to  ex- 
tradite an  escaped  lunatic.  He  changed  his  name  to  Chaloner, 
the  ancient  form  of  the  patronymic,  after  he  got  away  from 
the  asylum. 

A  strange  book  on  "Hell"  and  a  collection  of  poems  under 
the  title  "Scorpio,"  recently  published,  represent  Chaloner's  lit- 
erary efforts. 

(By  John  Armstrong  Chaloner.) 

THE  MERRY  MILLS,  COBHAM,  VA.,  May  i. — Since  the  Evening 
World  desires  to  know  my  views  upon  some  of  the  unrealities  of 
New  York  life,  in  view  of  its  notice  of  my  book  of  sonnets,  many 
of  them  satirical,  "scorpion"  perhaps,  I  had  as  well  preface  my  re- 
marks by  stating  my  credentials  for  passing  judgment  upon  New  York. 


APPENDIX  41 


I  was  born  there  fifty-one  years  ago  come  the  tenth  of  October, 
1913,  in  shadow  of  the  old  Astor  Library  literally,  in  Lafayette  Place. 

I  was  educated  in  New  York  City  by  the  Astor  family  tutor,  the 
late  William  H.  Wilson,  graduate  of  Columbia  University,  who  had 
tutored  my  mother,  and  some  years  after  tutoring  me  tutored  the 
late  Colonel  John  Jacob  Astor,  and  ended  his  days  as  an  attache  of 
the  Astor  Library.  After  four  years  at  St.  John's  Military  Academy 
at  Ossining-on-Hudson  and  two  years  at  Rugby  School  in  England 
thereafter,  I  spent  three  years  at  Columbia  University,  taking  my  A.  B. 
degree  in  that  time  and  my  A.  M.  the  next  year,  and  being  admitted 
to  the  New  York  bar  at  the  end  of  my  fifth  year  of  steady  sojourn 
in  the  city  with  "the  Great  White  Way." 

The  blocks  on  Fifth  Avenue  from  about  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral 
north  were  covered  with  rocks  and  goats  and  squatters'  shacks.  I 
sailed  small  boats  made  of  emptied  boxes  of  fig  paste  or  other  con- 
fections while  going  my  peripatetic  rounds  with  my  learned  tutor  in 
the  puddles  in  the  vast  vacant  waste  from  Fifth  Avenue  to  well  east 
of  Madison  and  as  far  north  as  you  like.  So  New  Yorkers  see  that 
I  am  qualified  to  speak,  having  grown  up  with  the  big  town.  Coming 
now  to  the  unrealities  of  New  York  life: 

The  only  loss  I  am  at  over  said  proposition  is  to  find  a  few  reali- 
ties in  New  York  life,  for  without  deep  racking  of  brain  and  memory 
not  a  solitary  pleasant  reality  comes  to  mind  touching  it. 

The  solid  reality  about  New  York  life  is  the  lust  for  lucre.  About 
the  reality  of  said  lust  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt  whatever.  I 
forgot  there  is  one  other  solid  reality  about  New  York  life,  and  that 
is  the  solidity  of  the  nightsticks  borne  by  the  finest  uniformed  ruffians 
in  the  entire  length  and  breadth  of  the  civilized  world.  I  allude,  of 
course,  to  the  falsely  alleged  "Finest."  I  nearly  had  my  kneecap  frac- 
tured by  a  nightstick  in  the  hands  of  "Clubber"  Williams,  as  the 
deposed  ex-Tenderloin  Police  Captain  Alexander  S.  Williams  was 
affectionately  dubbed  by  the  men  he'd  clubbed. 

Now  to  come  to  the  unrealities  of  New  York  life. 

Friendship  is  as  unreal  there  as  the  average  gold  brick  of  com- 
merce. I  never  injured  a  human  being  in  New  York.  Belonged  to 
more  first-class  clubs  than  any  man  in  my  set  before  I  resigned  from 
all  my  New  York  clubs  in  disgust,  and  yet  today  I  don't  count  one  soli- 
tary man  my  friend  in  that  whole  swarming  hive  of  humanity,  Gotham. 
I  had  friends,  but  they  were  old  men,  and  are  all  dead  men  of  a 
previous  generation. 

Men  of  this  generation  in  New  York  don't  know  even  what  the 
word  friendship  means.  What  I  say  applies  only  to  the  rich  and  pro- 
fessional and  bourgeois  or  shopkeeper  class. 


APPENDIX 


Among  the  laboring  men  and  longshoremen,  truck  drivers  and  the 
like,  friendship  is  as  real  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Damon  and  Pythias. 

But  the  rich  man  is  rotten. 

Another  unreality  of  New  York  is  pleasure.  Pleasure  in  New  York 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  fever,  fever  and  ague  thrown  in.  Fever 
in  the  mad  sweat  to  enjoy,  ague  in  the  cold  sweat  that  follows  the 
failure  to  attain  enjoyment — the  cold  sweat  of  disgust,  satiety,  if  not 
remorse,  and  a  "Head." 

Manners  are  another  unreality  of  New  York  life,  so  unreal  as  to 
be  phantom-like  to  be  non-existent.  Read  the  authentic  descriptions  in 
the  press  of  the  debauches  that  most  dinner  dances  nowadays  become, 
not  through  the  fault  of  the  hostess  but  owing  to  the  rotten  manners  of 
the  vulgar  nouveau  rich  who  make  up  so  much  of  modern  New  York 
society. 

Please  remember  that  I  am  blood  relative  to  the  only  Ward  Mc- 
Allister, creator  of  the  Four  Hundred,  and  I  know. 

Young  blackguards  scratching  matches  upon  white  and  gold  ball- 
room walls,  burning  tapestries  with  cigarette  butts,  flirting  with  the 
ladies'  maids  in  the  dressing  rooms,  and  finally  falling  asleep  dead 
drunk  under  the  tables. 

Above  is  not  a  portrait  of  a  debauch  in  the  time  of  Nero,  but  of 
one  in  New  York's  Four  Hundred  in  the  time  of  John  D.  Rockefeller. 
(Copyright,  1913,  by  John  Armstrong  Chaloner.) 

SOME  SONNETS  BY  MR.  CHALONER. 
(From  "Scorpio."    Copyright  by  J.  A.  Chaloner.) 

THE  DEVIL'S  HORSESHOE. 
A  fecund  sight  for  a  philosopher — 

Rich  as  Golconda's  mine  in  lessons  rare — 
That  gem-bedizzen'd  "horseshoe"  at  th'  opera 

Replete  with  costly  hags  and  matrons  fair! 
His  votaresses  doth  Mammon  there  array 

His  Amazonian  Phalanx  dread  to  face ! 
To  Mammon  there  do  they  their  homage  pay, 
Spangled  with  jewels,  satins,  silks  and  lace. 
Crones  whose  old  bosoms  within  their  corsets  creak; 

Beldames  whose  slightest  glance  would  fright  a  horse. 
Ghouls — when  they  speak  one  hears  the  grave-mole  squeak — 
Their  escorts  parvenus  of  features  coarse. 
A  rich  array  of  Luxury  and  Vice ! 
But  spite  of  them,  the  music's  very  nice. 


APPENDIX  43 


COLUMBIA. 
"My  Country  "Pis  of  Thee"  I  do  not  sing. 

Your're  in  too  sad  a  plight,  believe  me,  dear, 
For  plaudits  to  have  aught  but  a  false  ring; 

The  shallow  clang  of  counterfeit  to  th'  ear. 
The  courage  of  your  soldiers  all  men  know; 

Their  daring  and  their  ^patience  all  have  seen. 
Your  sailors'  markmanship  full  well  doth  show 

How  accurate  their  discipline  hath  been. 
But  Justice  in  thy  land  hath  gone  astray; 

Believe  me,  dear,  she  wanders  from  the  path, 
And  like  a  drunken  harlot  reels  her  way 

Along  the  broad  road  that  meets — the  People's  wrath! 
That  your  Legislatures  and  your  courts  you  purge, 
"Sweet  land" — my  land — "of  Liberty"  I  urge. 

A  SATIRIST'S  SALUTATORY. 

The  nameless  folly  of  the  human  race, 

Its  cruel  selfishness  and  trackless  guile, 
Make  me  ashamed  at  sight  of  human  face — 

That   stamping-ground    for  treachery   and   wile. 
The  smirking  smile  of  callow,  empty  youth, 

The  ripe  pomposity  of  hoary  age, 
The  shaded  gleam  of  manhood's  lusty  tooth, 

Each  plays  its  part  upon  its  petty  stage. 
Seduction,  lying,  thieving,  each  in  turn — 

A  murder  here  and  there  and  then  a  rape- 
Each  needing  only  that  temptation  burn 

And  hold  fair  chance  of  ultimate  escape. 
Exceptions  to  said  rule  exist,  'tis  true, 

No  such  exception  doth  exist  in  you. 

OPPRESSION. 
Oppression  was  the  rod  that  struck  the  rock 

And  loos'd  the  fiery  floodgates  of  my  tongue. 
The  click  behind  me  o'  the  prison  lock 

Unlock'd  the  fetters  that  had  kept  it  dumb. 
The  body  free,  then  was  the  tongue  enchain'd ; 

The  body  'prison'd  then  the  tongue  sprung  free. 


44  APPENDIX 


Sonnet  38,  page  38. 

"MIDNIGHT."  * 

"Midnight"  and  its  five  accompanying  sonnets  were  done  in  "Bloom- 
ingdale"  in  the  years  1898,  1899  and  1900.  They  were  among  the  first 
sonnets  ever  written  by  the  author.  The  five  accompanying  sonnets, 
to  wit:  "A  Call,"  "Wordsworth,"  "The  Rubicon  of  the  Unknown," 
"There  Is  a  Tide"  and  "Le  Noir  Faineant." 


Sonnet  39,  page  39. 

"A  CALL."  * 

The  above  sonnet  was  written  when  Trusts  were  in  the  zenith  of 
their  corruption  and  pride,  when  Rockefeller  and  his  companion  thieves 
in  Standard  Oil  appeared  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  the  courts  in  their 
law  breaking:  and  before  the  enlightened  action  of  President  Roose- 
velt had  awakened  the  "Valley  of  Dry  Bones" — spoken  of  by  the 
Prophet  Ezekiel — the  Sherman  Act — into  what  resulted  in  the  learned 
ruling  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Tobacco  Trust 
and  Standard  Oil  Trust  cases ;  which  proved  that  competition  was  to  be 
forever  free  in  this  country,  and  not — as  heretofore — contraband  of 
war,  in  the  u'ar  between  the  rich  and  the  poor. 


Sonnet  40,  page  40. 

"WORDSWORTH."  * 

This  was  the  first  sonnet  ever  written  by  the  author. 

Sonnet  43,  page  43. 

"LE  NOIR  FAINfiANT."  * 

This  sonnet  is  highly  symbolical. 

Suffice  it  to  say  the  author  under  the  guise  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
splendid  character — in  that  matchless  romance  "Ivanhoe" — "Le  Noir 
Faineant" — who  was  indifferent  to  fame  but  not  to  injustice-y-pictures 
himself  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  Free  Lances — his  sonnets — with  which 
to  attack  wrong-doing  in  the  "seats  of  the  mighty"  particularly. 

Carrying  the  metaphor  further,  he  pictures  himself  cutting  his  and 
his  Free  Lances'  way  thro'  a  horde  of  encircling  hostiles  of  the 


APPENDIX  45 


press.  He  speaks  of  his  band  as  "trained  men,"  because  they  are 
"trained"  in  the  sense  that  they  are  sonnets,  and  therefore  the  very 
essence  of  literary  "training." 

The  color  of  his  war-horse  is  white — that  being  the  color  of  what 
carries  his  sonnets — which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  snow  white 
page  of  virgin  paper. 

As  has  been  more  than  once  observed  the  author  is  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  the  great  profession  of  Journalism.  Shortly — a  year,  or, 
perhaps,  two  years — before  writing  said  sonnet  the  author  had  been 
savagely  maligned  by  a  reporter  for  the  New  York  Press  in  an  article 
as  mendacious  as  it  was  malignant,  written  by  an  ex-habitue  of  "Bloom- 
ingdale"  who  had  been  "doing  time"  in  that  institution  for  the  crime 
of  morphinism.  Said  reporter  had  been  in  the  "Pen"  of  "Blooming- 
dale"  for  months  before  the  author's  arrival  therein — so  he  understood — 
and  remained  there  until  October,  1897,  when  he  was  discharged. 

Thereupon  said  ex-dope-fiend  set  to  work  to  turn  an  honest  penny 
by  lying  about  the  author  in  the  following  scandalous  fashion.  We 
quote  from  memory.  A  reference  to  the  files  of  the  New  York  Press 
of  October  13,  1897,  will  show  the  accuracy  thereof.  The  following  is 
not  verbatim,  but  is  the  gist  of  the  headlines,  to  wit :  "John  Arm- 
strong Chaloner  in  'Bloomingdale.'  A  hopeless  lunatic !  His  trouble  is 
paresis."  What  follows  is  pretty  close  to  verbatim:  "The  unfortunate 
man  will  soon  be  helpless  as  a  babe."  Then  follows  a  lot  of  flub  dub 
about  the  author's  exciting  marriage,  ditto  divorce,  and  winds  up 
verbatim  as  follows :  "And  now  from  the  cells  of  'Bloomingdale'  comes 
another  startling  chapter  of  the  strange  story." 

It  was  the  memory  of  the  above  scandalous  screed  that  was  in  the 
author's  head  when  he  penned  that  portion  of  the  said  sonnet  which 
trenches  upon  Journalism. 


Sonnet  44,  page  44. 

THE  ROSARY.* 

(Extract  from  a  letter  to  a  distinguished  Southern  lawyer  enclosing  a 
copy  of  "The  Rosary"  a  day  or  so  after  the  latter  was  composed.) 

In  the  midst  of  law's  alarms  in  my  tumultuous  life  of  the  past 
several  years.  I  have  had  few  spare  moments  for  sonnet  writing,  or,  in 
fact,  desire  thereto.  There's  a  legal  maxim  you  doubtless  remember 
to  this  effect:  "In  the  clash  of  arms  laws  are  silent" — to  paraphrase 
which  I  might  say — Midst  the  snarl  of  law  the  Muses  sleep.  Hence 
I  have  not  written  ten  sonnets  in  the  past  ten  months.  But  on  Easter 


46  APPENDIX 


Monday  I  felt  a  longing  to  view  more  closely  and  frequently  the 
radiant  visage  of  the  great  Voltaire,  whose  bust  by  Houdon  I  im- 
ported— a  cast,  I  mean  of  same,  from  the  Louvre  in  Paris — in  1894,  on 
my  last  visit  to  "the  city  of  light." 

I  thought  how  Voltaire  would  have  excoriated  the  other  side. 
Accordingly  I  had  my  cast  of  the  reduced  effigy  of  "Le  Penseur"  by 
Michel  Angelo  taken  from  my  chimney-piece  and  placed  in  the  billiard 
room  below,  and  Voltaire  brought  up.  I  soon — very  soon,  apparently — 
became  somewhat — at  least — under  the  literary  inspiration,  so  to  speak — 
of  Voltaire.  His  bust  had  not  reposed  upon  the  mantel-piece  twenty- 
four  minutes  before  I  began  to  feel  a  desire  to  write  sonnets,  such  as  I 
had  not  felt  for  months  and  months.  I  promptly  yielded  to  same,  and 
by  the  watch — which  I  had  at  my  side — I  wrote  the  accompanying  six 
sonnets  between  about  ten  minutes  to  4  P.  M.  and  5.49  P.  M. — 
3-24-13 — averaging  not  more  than  fifteen  to  twenty  minutes  apiece  to 
write,  for  I  rested  a  few  minutes  between  each,  and  blotting  only  one 
line,  and  erasing  never  more  than  about  three  words  per  sonnet.  I 
mention  this  only  to  prove  my  hypothesis  that  the  Voltairean  influence 
was  instantaneous,  besides  being  pretty  fairly  sustained.  Of  course,  I 
am  far  from  being  under  the  influence  of  Voltaire  in  religion.  I 
believe  firmly  in  all  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 

To  "return  to  our  mutton,"  and  wind  up.  In  said  sonnets  I  have 
attempted  a  somewhat  daring  thing.  So  far  as  I  know  the  challenge  of 
Jehovah  to  Job — found  in  the  last  two  chapters  or  so  of  that  wonder- 
ful book — to  wit :  "Gird  up  thy  loins  like  a  man  and  answer  me,"  or 
words  to  said  effect,  for  I  quoted  entirely  from  memory — not  having 
a  Bible  on  my  floor — in  both  quotations  I've  made  in  the  sonnets — 
the  last  in  number  six,  found  on  or  about  the  last  line  of  the  Bible, 
in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Revelation,  so  far  as  I  know  no 
one  has  ever  taken  up  said  glove  thrown  down  to  mankind  by  Jehovah 
Jah,  the  Man  of  War — and  replied  to  the  putrid  injustice  and  tyrannical 
wrong-doing  with  which  the  world  is  rife,  and  for  which  He  is  largely 
responsible — since  He  allegedly  created  the  world  and  all  that  therein 
is,  and  could  wipe  out  tyranny  did  He  so  desire.  I  furnish  a  sound 
argument — I'm  not  called  upon  to  supply  brains  for  its  reception,  as 
Doctor  Samuel  Johnson  profoundly  observed.  To  resume. 

No  poet  nor  prose-writer  has  ever  seen  the  superb  chance  lurk- 
ing therein  for  a  legitimate,  frank  and  fearless  criticism,  even  heart- 
to-heart  talk  with  Omnipotence.  Since  the  Pearly  Gates  are  opened, 
the  Celestial  and  repelling  Bars  are  for  the  sole  _and  only  occasion 
throughout  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  Scriptures — mark  that, 
please — the  Celestial  Bars  are  for  once  and  once  only  and  forever, 


APPENDIX  47 


let  down-!  This  gives  the  hardy  adventurer  in  the  field  of  inexorable 
and  fearless  and  impeccable  Logic — The  Guide  of  God — the  chance 
of  a  life  time  to  square  accounts  with  God  Almighty,  if  things  have 
not  been  especially  coming  his  way.  This  chance  I  took.  Whether  I 
made  the  most  of  the  said  golden  opportunity  or  not  is  for  you  to 
judge.  But — in  my  humble  way — I  made  a  serious  and  sustained  effort 
to  place  before  the  Tribunal  of  the  Great  White  Throne  my  cause 
for  impatience  at  the  delayed  arrival  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  earth;  and 
the  establishment  of  His  promised  rule  of  iron  which  alone  can  keep 
that  crooked,  cowardly  animal  man  in  anything  approaching  an  attitude 
where  his  hands  are  outside  his  neighbor's  pockets. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  the  tone  of  the  six  sonnets  would  not  meet 
with  the  enthusiastic  approval  of  the  "W.  C.  T.  U."  or  the  average 
Dorcas  Sewing  Society.  Still,  there  is  neither  a  profane  or  highly- 
colored  word  in  all  their  broad  length  of  eighty-four  lines. 

In  conclusion,  I've — disguisedly — put  the  plaint  in  the  mouth  of  a 
devout  but  world-weary  monk,  who  in  his  desert  solitude  of — say, 
En-gedi — finding  his  old  time  Rosary  rather  outworn,  has  made  a  new 
one  of  six  big  beads,  each  of  which  is  a  pigeon-blood  ruby  of  a  cri 
du  coeur  of  a  disgusted  man  who  worships  Ideality  and  thirsts  for 
even  the  most  meagre,  threadbare  specimen  of  justice,  honesty  and 
truth:  and  from  fifty  years  of  searching— like  Diogenes  himself— dis- 
pairs  of  ever  finding  them  in  man. 


48  APPENDIX 


The  "Tribune" 

New  York  City,  June  10,  1913 


Chaloner  May  Have  $1 ,500,000  For  Asking 

BUT  HE  REFUSES  TO  APPLY  TO  NEW  YORK  COURT  FOR 
DECREE  OF  SANITY. 


FIGHTING  FOR  PRINCIPLE. 


CONTENDS    STATE    BENCH    HAD    NO    AUTHORITY    TO    DECLARE    HIM    MENTALLY 
INCOMPETENT — IN    NEED   OF    MONEY. 


John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  of  Virginia,  formerly  Chaloner,  of  New 
York,  and  a  brother  of  former  Lieutenant  Governor  Lewis  Stuyvesant 
Chanler  and  of  Robert  W.  Chanler,  can  come  back  to  this  State  and 
have  himself  declared  sane  if  only  he  will  make  the  application  to  the 
New  York  Supreme  Court.  Such  a  decree  will  entitle  him  to  his 
property,  valued  at  $1,500,000. 

But  Mr.  Chaloner,  who  is  regarded  as  insane  in  this  State  and 
sane  in  Virginia,  refused  to  accept  the  invitation.  He  is  fighting  for 
a  principle.  His  contention  is  that  the  New  York  courts  never  had 
jurisdiction  over  him  and  were  without  authority  to  declare  him  men- 
tally incompetent. 

Mr.  Chaloner,  through  his  counsel,  Frederick  A.  Ware,  filed  a 
petition  in  the  Supreme  Court  yesterday  asking  that  his  allowance 
from  the  income  on  his  property,  which  now  amounts  to  $17,000  a 
year,  be  increased  to  $33,000.  To  prove  that  he  needs  the  additional 
$16,000  for  his  support,  Mr.  Chaloner  submitted  several  volumes  bear- 
ing on  the  lunacy  laws  of  several  States  which  he  has  published. 

He  wanted  $8,000  of  the  increased  allowance  to  enable  him  to 
undertake  a  movement  to  amend  these  laws  in  the  different  States. 
The  remainder  of  the  money,  he  said,  he  needed  to  keep  up  his  estate 
in  Virginia  and  to  pay  his  attorneys.  Another  volume  submitted  by 
Chaloner  was  entitled  "Four  Years  Behind  the  Bars  of  Bloomingdale." 
which  covers  his  experience  before  he  escaped  from  Bloomingdale 
Asylum  and  went  to  Virginia.  Also  there  was  a  book  of  poems  of 
which  he  was  the  author,  entitled  "Scorpio." 


APPENDIX  49 


Mr.  Chaloner  explained  in  his  papers  how  he  came  to  be  sent  to 
the  asylum.  He  said  Stanford  White,  who  was  killed  by  Harry  K. 
Thaw,  induced  him  to  come  to  New  York,  and  when  he  got  here  two 
alienists  examined  him  at  his  hotel  and  had  him  committed  without 
giving  him  a  chance  to  prove  his  sanity. 

The  statement  that  Mr.  Chaloner  may,  if  he  so  chooses,  have  him- 
self declared  sane  was  made  by  Thomas  T.  Sherman,  who  has  been 
guardian  of  his  property.  Mr.  Sherman  said  he  would  not  oppose 
any  such  move  provided  the  application  was  made  in  the  New  York 
Supreme  Court,  a  point  which  Mr.  Chaloner  will  not  accede  to. 

Mr.  Ware,  in  making  his  application,  denied  his  client  was  insane, 
and  said  he  desired  the  additional  money  to  do  some  good.  He  de- 
clared the  attorneys  who  were  opposing  the  increase  were  paid  out 
of  the  estate  of  Mr.  Chaloner. 

Joseph  H.  Choate,  Jr.,  who  opposed  the  granting  of  the  increase, 
said  the  only  evidence  that  Mr.  Chaloner  was  sane  was  the  fact  he  had 
engaged  lawyers  to  get  the  increase  for  him.  Justice  Giegerich  asserted 
he  wanted  an  opportunity  to  examine  all  the  papers  in  the  case  and 
reserved  decision. 


50  APPENDIX 


The  "Evening  World" 

New  York  City,  June  10,  1913 

Chaloner  Says  Offer  to  Regain  Property  is  An 
Old  Trick 

DECLARES   CHANGE  OF  COURT  WOULD   MEAN   PROBING  OF  His   SANITY 
AGAIN. 


(Special  to  the  Evening  World.} 

RICHMOND,  VA.,  June  10. — "It's  merely  one  of  their  old  tricks," 
declared  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  before  leaving  today  for  Merry 
Mills,  commenting  on  press  despatches  from  New  York  saying  that 
Thomas  T.  Sherman,  guardian  of  his  estate,  had  offered  to  permit  him 
to  regain  possession  of  his  property,  valued  at  nearly  $2,000,000,  pro- 
vided he  would  make  application  in  the  State  courts. 

Chaloner  was  in  a  dentist  chair  when  the  news  reached  him  over 
the  'phone.  "They  have  been  up  to  that  trick  for  years,"  he  said, 
hastily  leaving  the  chair.  "They  want  me  to  transfer  the  issue  from 
the  Federal  to  the  State  courts  so  that  my  sanity  may  be  probed  again. 
But  they  won't  catch  me  napping.  I  am  sane  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  and  that  permits  me  to  continue  my  fight  in  Uncle  Sam's 
courts. 

"It  is  true  that  I  am  resorting  to  the  New  York  State  courts  to 
have  my  income  increased,  but  that  is  only  a  subsidiary  issue.  The 
principal  issue  will  remain  in  the  Federal  courts  until  it  is  settled, 
regardless  of  any  proposition  that  may  come  from  Sherman  or  any 
of  those  affiliated  with  him.  I  don't  propose  to  get  into  the  clutches 
of  Sherman's  Tammany  Hall  courts  if  I  can  help  it." 

Chaloner  made  the  wires  fairly  hum  as  he  raked  his  guardian  over 
the  coals.  He  spoke  as  if  it  were  little  short  of  brazen  audacity  for 
Sherman  to  make  such  a  proposition,  knowing  that  it  had  been  turned 
down  point  blank  on  previous  occasions. 

"The  proposition  was  made  first  ten  years  ago,"  he  said.  "It  is 
just  a  few  months  ago  that  my  brother-in-law  came  forward  with  the 
same  overtures." 


APPENDIX  51 


The  "Evening  Journal" 

New  York  City,  June  2,  1913 

Chaloner  Asks  $32,000  a  Year;  Who's  Looney? 

John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  who  has  made  the  world  merrier  for 
his  having  lived  in  it  by  inventing  the  phrase  "Who's  looney  now?"  is 
before  the  courts  of  New  York  again.  He  has  outgrown  his  annual 
income  of  $16,000  a  year — or  his  schemes  have — and  he  is  anxious 
that  the  Supreme  Court  raise  it  to  $32,000.  Frederick  A.  Ware,  a 
former  Assemblyman,  as  Mr.  Chaloner's  attorney,  will  present  the 
petition  today  in  special  term. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  courts  of  New  York  have  not  changed 
their  opinion  regarding  Mr.  Chaloner's  insanity,  he  will  be  unable  to 
attend  the  hearing  in  person.  Instead,  he  will  await  the  result  at  his 
Virginia  home,  where  he  is  regarded  as  being  as  sane  as  any  other  resi- 
dent of  the  State. 

And  so  the  question  must  be  answered  all  over  again,  and  in  the 
language  of  many  nationalities.  As  Blucher  remarked  to  Wellington 
after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  "Wer  ist  nun  verrucht?" 

The  most  substantial  ground  for  Mr.  Chaloner's  move  to  double 
his  income,  as  Mr.  Ware  will  explain  to  the  court,  is  that  the  Chaloner 
estate  is  increasing  every  year  and  now  yields  about  $112,000  an- 
nually. Under  those  circumstances  he  has  no  hesitation  in  asking  for 
a  little  more  than  has  heretofore  been  his  portion.  Or,  to  quote  from 
an  unpublished  account  of  Mark  Anthony's  oration  over  the  body  of 
Caesar,  "Quis  est  nunc  insanus  ?" 

HE    HAS    OTHER    MOTIVES. 

But  there  are  other  motives  nearer  and  dearer  to  Mr.  Chaloner's 
heart,  and  which  relate  to  the  high  cost  of  realizing  one's  ambitions, 
that  he  will  submit  to  the  Supreme  Bench.  First  of  all,  there  is  the 
fact  that  his  former  attorneys  died  before  he  had  settled  his  account 
with  them.  Their  heirs,  however,  have  inherited  the  right  to  the  un- 
paid fees,  and  Mr.  Chaloner  fears  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  meet 
these  debts  on  his  present  income,  and  do  everything  else  he  has 
pledged  himself  to  do. 

"Qui  est  fou  maintenant  ?"  in  the  words  of  Andre  de  Fouquieres. 

One  pet  project  of  his  that  will  require  more  money  than  he  has 
at  his  disposal  is  the  improvement  of  insanity  laws.  It  was  under  the 


APPENDIX 


present  insanity  laws  that  Mr.  Chaloner  was  adjudged  insane,  and  it  is 
the  present  insanity  laws  that  have  cribbed,  cabined  and  confined  his 
life  and  movements  since  that  judgment  was  delivered.  For  his  own 
comfort,  as  well  as  for  the  convenience  of  others  who  may  be  in  a 
like  predicament  at  any  future  time,  the  author  of  "Who's  Looney 
Now"  wants  a  set  of  laws  on  the  statute  books  that  will  enable  a  judge 
to  answer  that  question  without  making  any  such  mistakes  as  were 
made  in  his  case. 

Not  a  bad  idea  at  all,  is  it?  As  Sancho  Panza  remarked  to  Don 
Quixote  after  he  had  rescued  him  from  the  windmills,  "Quien  es  un 
bobo  ahora?" 

Further,  Mr.  Chaloner  is  the  founder  of  the  Mass  Meeting  Club 
in  Richmond.  This  is  an  organization  devoted  to  helping  young  girls. 
Mr.  Chaloner's  funds  are  its  mainstay,  and  it  is  one  of  the  young 
millionaire's  griefs  that  he  cannot  finance  it  more  liberally.  Too  much 
money,  he  believes,  cannot  be  spent  in  such  a  cause. 

Speaking  as  one  great  Dane  to  another,  "Vvem  er  nu  blod?" 
There  are  a  good  many  crazier  ways  of  spending  one's  money,  take  it 
from  Mr.  Chaloner. 

AND    SOME    MORE. 

If  these  reasons  fail  to  satisfy  the  Supreme  Court  His  Honor  will 
be  politely  requested  to  take  note  of  Mr.  Chaloner's  plan  to  publish 
a  new  edition  of  his  volume  of  poems. 

True,  the  court  interpreter  may  mutter  in  Hungarian,  under  his 
breath,  "Ki  a  bolond  mostan?" 

But  not  after  he  has  been  informed  of  the  enormous  demand  there 
has  been  for  this  little  brochure.  He'll  be  sorry  he  said  it  then. 

The  judge,  however,  may  be  prompted  to  ask  why,  if  the  volume 
has  been  so  flatteringly  received,  has  it  not  brought  its  author  suffi- 
cient profits  to  enable  him  to  float  a  second  edition  out  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  first? 

A  poser,  eh?  As  Count  Witte  whispered  to  Admiral  Rojestvensky 
when  he  got  back  to  the  Nevsky  Prospect,  "Kmo  ecm  gypnom  menepe  ?" 

But  the  answer  is  very  simple.  Offer  outpourings  of  his  Muse 
for  sale?  Commercialize  his  art?  Never!  That  is  something  of 
which  John  Armstrong  Chaloner  never  has  and  never  shall  be  guilty! 
The  writing  of  these  poems  is  their  own  reward.  He  takes  great 
pleasure  in  giving  away  a  copy  to  every  one  he  can  think  of  who  may 
be  possessed  of  the  amount  of  intelligence  required  for  their  apprecia- 
tion. And  not  a  copy  has  ever  been  returned.  Now  the  supply  is 
exhausted,  and  he  needs  the  money  to  put  out  another  edition  to 
satisfy  the  demand  for  them. 


APPENDIX  53 


ABANDONS   FIGHT   IN    NEW    YORK. 

"Hathch  koo  lelquisa?"— in  the  words  of  Sitting  Bull  the  night 
before  the  Custer  massacre. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  news  of  this  fight  for  more  funds  be- 
came public  it  was  learned  that  Chaloner  had  given  up  his  battle  for 
freedom  in  the  New  York  courts.  Why  spend  any  more  money  in 
proving  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  New  York  State  authorities  that  he  is 
sane,  when  he  wouldn't  live  here  even  if  they  agreed  to  take  it  all 
back  and  admit  that  he  has  as  much  sense  as  the  common  run  of 
humanity?  He  doesn't  have  to  prove  to  the  people  or  the  courts  of 
Virginia  that  he  isn't  crazy.  They  admit  it.  Nobody  interferes  with 
him  or  attempts  to  restrain  him  down  there.  He  is  loved  and  re- 
spected by  his  neighbors.  And  he  does  just  as  he  pleases.  Why  should 
he  purchase  a  freedom  that  is  good  only  in  New  York  State,  when 
he  wouldn't  use  it  as  often  as  he  would  a  pass  over  the  Trans- 
Siberian  Railway? 

"II  quale  son  scrocco  ora?"  as  they  say  in  the  best  Neapolitan 
society. 


The  author  of  this  entertaining  article — either  our  distinguished 
friend  of  twenty  years'  standing,  its  editor  Mr.  Arthur  Brisbane,  or 
one  of  Mr.  Brisbane's  talented  young  men — is  in  error,  slightly,  in 
one  sole  particular  in  this  otherwise  mathematically  exact  story:  and 
we  hasten  to  say  that  the  error  in  question  is  no  fault  of  his,  for 
he  simply  copied  it  out  of  the  statement  of  our  distinguished  trial 
counsel,  Hon.  Frederick  A.  Ware,  of  35  Nassau  Street,  Manhattan. 

Mr.  Ware  was  in  error,  from  the  sinister  fact  that,  although  chief 
counsel  in  all  our  several  and  sundry  law  suits;  and  author  of  the 
brief  he  plead  to  so  ably  June  Qth  before  Mr.  Justice  Giegerich,  of 
the  New  York  Supreme  Court,  we  are  separated  from  our  trial 
counsel  by  hundreds  of  miles — for  safety's  sake — since  a  visit  to  New 
York,  under  the  present  illegal  lunacy  laws  tolerated  by  press,  pulpit, 
public,  bar  and  bench — with  some  noble  exceptions — of  the  "Empire 
State,"  our  liberty  would  not  be  worth  five  cent's  purchase.  A  perusal 
of  the  two  pages  of  criticism  upon  our  law  book  "The  Lunacy  Law  of 
the  World,"  which  closes  this  Appendix,  will  show  that  New  York's 
immoral  apathy  will  reap  a  crop  of  scorn  at  the  hands  of  the  future 
historian  little  short  of  that  merited  by  Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 

Mr.  Ware  being  separated  from  us  by  a  great  gulf— as  afore- 
said— could  not  possibly  be  mathematically  exact  as  to  all  the  little 
non-material  literary  details  in  his  stunning  exposition  of  the  situation. 


54  APPENDIX 


He  stated,  in  effect,  that  "Scorpio"  was  not  to  be  sold,  but  given  away. 
The  Evening  Journal  followed  him  here — perforce — into  the  camp  of 
error.  "Scorpio"  is  to  be  sold,  provided  we  can  get  enough  money  from 
the  New  York  Supreme  Court  to  properly  advertise  the  exceedingly 
satisfactory  long  array  of  literary  criticisms  thereon,  displayed  in  this 
Appendix;  and  thereby  satisfy  the  natural  curiosity  aroused  naturally 
by  such  satisfactory  encomiums. 

We  do  not  intend  to  sell — except  an  exceptionally  large  demand 
appears — but  do  expect  to,  and  desire  to,  give  away,  among  working 
people,  our  fortnightly  lectures — of  a  Sunday  night — at  the  "Rex" 
Theatre — Seventh  and  Broad  Streets,  Richmond,  Va.  As  the  lec- 
tures are  free,  so  should  be  the  account  of  same — in  a  reasonable 
quantity — in  order  that  the  vile  evil  may  be  brought  to  an  end,  which 
at  present  afflicts  the  fair  city  of  Richmond,  owing  largely  to  the 
shameless  indifference  of  the  legislative  committee,  who  refused  at 
the  last  session  of  the  Virginia  General  Assembly,  to  raise  the  age- 
of-consent-limit  to  at  least  sixteen,  from  its  abominable,  scandalous, 
criminally  low  limit  of  fourteen  years. 

Taking  advantage  of  this  state  of  affairs,  certain  villains  with 
money  enough  to  either  own  or  hire  automobiles,  set  to  work  to 
systematically  open  up  a  reign  of  seduction  and  debauchery  among  the 
little  daughters  of  the  poor — one  day  or  more  over  said  criminally 
low  limit  of  fourteen. 

These  Hell-hounds  would  take  the  children  out  "Joy  riding"  at 
night  and  their  Hellish  work  was  done  either  in  the  automobile,  a 
few  miles  outside  the  city  limits,  or  in  bushes  contiguous  to  the  auto- 
mobile— or  elsewhere.  A  perfect  storm  was  raised  last  fall  in  the 
Protestant  pulpits  of  Richmond,  calling  for  a  reform  of  this  reign  of 
the  Minotaur  in  Richmond. 

But  the  people  were  quiescent.  There  was  no  sign  or  sound  of  a 
mass  meeting. 

So  we  started — what  we  term — the  "Mass  Meeting  Club  of  Rich- 
mond," to  which  all  classes  of  society  are  invited — bar  the  silk  stock- 
ing brigade;  or  wonied  class,  because  ff  is  from  them  that  the  very 
crimes  in  question  originated — the  rich — in  this  instance^  actually  prey- 
ing upon  the  daughters  of  the  poor,  and  turning  them  into  prostitutes. 

Such  straight  talk  as  the  above  would  therefore  not  be  music  in  the 
ears  of  the  Richmond  rich — and  Richmond  is  a  very  prosperous  city 
indeed — commercially  speaking— therefore  the  author  of  "Scorpio"  be- 
ing more  or  less  "wise,"  from  having  been  hunted  and  hounded  for 
lo!  now  these  many  years  by  the  rich  of  New  York— as  fully  de- 


APPENDIX  55 


scribed   in   the   Prologue   hereto — namely   nearly   seventeen   years — did 
not  invite  the  silk  stocking  brigade. 

The  mass  meeting  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon 
form  of  government  by  a  grand  national  council  of  its  people  and 
chiefs,  under  their  King,  in  council  assembled — the  whole  body  of  the 
free  people  were  eligible^  to  appear  at  said  mighty  host,  and  take  part 
in  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  Its  name  was  the  Witenagemot. 

^  Since  September,  1912,  we  have  been  addressing  full  houses  fort 
nightly  in  Richmond,  as  aforesaid,  and  the  following  we  hove  thus 
obtained  proves  beyond  cavil  that  the  mass  meeting  idea,  on  a  perma- 
nent basis,  open  to  all,  and  free  to  all,  financed  by  ourselves  and  per- 
manently organised — will  be  a  fixture  in  Richmond,  so  soon  as  we  can 
get  enough  of  our  own  money  out  of  the  reluctant  clutches  of  Thomas 
T.  Sherman — now  unlawfully  retaining  same — Jo  print  and  disseminate 
the  literature  describing  the  meetings  of  the  "Richmond  Mass  Meeting 
Club." 

The  first  edition  of  "Scorpio"  was  so  small — some  three  hun- 
dred copies  only — because  our  funds  did  not  admit  of  a  larger  edition — 
it  was  entirely  exhausted  by  the  time  the  rather  long  line  of  news- 
papers and  literary  friends  to  which  "Scorpio"  was  sent  had  been 
accommodated. 


What  the  Law  Reviews  Have  to  Say  About 
"The  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World" 

By  John  Armstrong  Chaloner,  A.  B.,  A.  M.,  Member  of  the  Bar 


NORTHEASTERN  REPORTER 

St.  Paul,  Minn.,  July,  1907. 

"The  Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C,  has  printed  a  book 
on  'The  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World,'  by  J.  A.  Chaloner,  of  the  same 
place.  It  is  an  examination  of  the  laws  of  the  States  and  Territories, 
and  of  the  Six  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  on  this  subject,  and  is  in 
terms  a  very  severe  arraignment  of  most  of  them.  It  would  appear 
that  the  iniquitous  system  against  which  Charles  Reade  waged  war  has 
by  no  means  disappeared.  People  may  still  be  incarcerated  in  insane 
asylums  without  notice,  and  without  an  opportunity  to  be  heard,  either 


APPENDIX 


in  person  or  by  attorney;  and  once  in  an  asylum,  a  patient  has  little 
protection  against  the  keepers.  They  may  be  wise,  and  kind,  but  the 
instances  of  cruelty  which  occasionally  reach  the  public  indicate  that 
this  is  not  a  safe  assumption.  Mr.  Chaloner  holds  a  brief  for  the  ac- 
cused, and  puts  his  case  very  strongly,  but,  in  -view  of  the  cases  he 
cites,  it  would  be  impossible  to  state  the  matter  too  strongly.  He  says : 

"  'A  survey  of  the  field  of  Lunacy  Legislation  the  world  over  pre- 
sents to-day  an  appalling  spectacle.  It  affords,  to  put  it  mildly,  the 
strongest  card  in  favor  of  anarchy — of  no  law — ever  laid  upon  the 
table  of  world-politics ;  and  throws  into  lamentable  relief  the  fact  that 
in  about  forty  per  cent,  of  the  States  and  Territories  of  the  United 
States  neither  the  Bench — with  many  honorable  exceptions — the  Bar 
nor  the  Legislature,  can  be  entrusted  with  safeguarding  that  funda- 
mental principle  of  liberty,  the  absolute  rights  of  the  individual.' 

"The  book  should  awaken  public  interest  in  an  important  matter." 


THE  OHIO  LAW  BULLETIN. 

Norwalk,  Ohio,  July  29,  1907. 
"Chaloner,  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World. 

"A  criticism'  of  the  practice  of  adjudging  persons  incompetent  and 
depriving  them  of  their  liberties  without  due  process  of  law,  fortified 
by  decisions  of  the  courts,  is  the  theme  upon  which  the  author  has  de- 
veloped this  interesting  and  instructive  work.  The  lunacy  law  of  all 
the  States  of  the  Union  and  six  of  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  are 
reviewed,  and  surprising  as  it  may  seem,  nearly  half  of  the  States  and 
Great  Britain  fail  to  require  notice  of  the  inquisition  to  be  given  the 
alleged  lunatic  or  incompetent;  twenty-four  of  the  States  and  Ger- 
many and  Great  Britain  fail  to  afford  him  opportunity  to  appear  and 
be  heard.  The  author  makes  it  conclusively  appear  that  there  is  needed 
revision  of  these  laws.  Edited  by  J.  A.  Chaloner,  counsellor  at  law. 
Published  by  the  Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C." 


THE  OKLAHOMA  LAW  JOURNAL. 

Guthrie,  Oklahoma,  September,  1907. 

"The  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World, 

By  J.  A.  Chaloner. 

Published  by  the  Palmetto   Press, 

Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. 

This  is  a  volume  of  nearly  four  hundred  pages,  well  printed,  but 
bound  in  paper  covers — a  point  always  detrimental  to  the  sale  as  well 
as  the  dignity  of  a  law  book.  However,  when  the  contents  are  care- 


APPENDIX  57 


fully  read  and  reflected  upon,  it  is  found  one  of  the   best  and   most 
needed  books  that  has  appeared  for  many  years. 

The  subject  of  Lunacy  Law  in  spite  of  all  the  legislation  we  have 
had  in  other  departments,  has  received  little  attention.  In  fact,  it  is 
little  better  than  when  Charles  Reade  wrote  his  book,  entitled,  'Hard 
Cash.'  The  fact  that  many  mentally  deranged  persons  are  incapable  of 
comprehending  the  nature  of  the  steps  taken  to  place  them  in  custody, 
the  custom  has  become  prevalent  that  no  process  is  needed  to  place 
them  on  trial  as  to  their  sanity.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  in  every 
State  of  the  Union,  and  in  fact,  in  every  country  of  the  world,  fraud 
has  been  perpetrated  on  men  and  women  of  means  by  greedy  relatives 
and  the  unfortunate  ones  placed  in  asylums  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  secure  control  of  their  property.  And  further  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  one  once  adjudged  insane  if  he  cannot  secure  a  hearing  of 
his  right  to  restoration  through  the  influence  of  true  friends  he  is  for- 
ever barred  of  the  right  to  be  heard.  He  has  lost  the  standing  of  a 
citizen.  There  is  much  in  Mr.  Chaloner's  book  that  should  be  well 
studied  by  every  lawyer  and  legislator  as  to  what  should  be  done  to 
secure  the  constitutional  rights  of  every  one  alleged  to  be  of  unsound 
mind.  The  book  carefully  goes  over  the  law  of  lunacy  in  the  forty- 
five  States  and  Territories  as  well  as  that  of  the  leading  nations  of 
Europe." 

LANCASTER  LAW  REVIEW. 

Lancaster,  Pa.,  September  30,  1907. 

"The  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World. 

By  J.  A.  Chaloner,  Counsellor  at  Law. 

Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  N.  C. 

The  work  is  a  review  of  the  lunacy  laws  of  the  States  and  Terri- 
tories of  this  country  together  with  those  of  Great  Britain,  France, 
Italy,  Germany,  Austria  and  Russia,  with  a  view  of  showing  their  de- 
fects mainly  in  regard  to  affording  proper  protection  to  the  alleged 
lunatic. 

To  those  of  us  who  have  been  accustomed  to  look  with  compla- 
cency on  our  lunacy  laws,  remembering  how  lunatics  were  thrown  into 
dungeons  and  chained  and  tortured  but  a  short  time  ago,  this  book 
brings  home  some  startling  truths.  It  shows  clearly  the  dangers  of 
that  class  of  legislation  in  force  in  England  and  many  of  our  Mates 
(as  our  own  Act  of  April  20,  1869,  P.  L.,  78),  which  permits  an  alleged 
lunatic^  to  be  incarcerated  upon  the  certificate  of  two  or  more  reputable 

yS1TheSauthor  contends  that  in  lunacy  proceedings  notice  to  the  al- 


58  APPENDIX 


leged  lunatic  ought  to  be  absolutely  essential  and  that  the  trial  should 
be  by  jury  in  the  presence  of  the  alleged  lunatic;  that  any  other  prac- 
tice is  a  •violation  of  his  constitutional  rights  and  dangerous,  in  that  it 
might  be  used  by  designing  relatives  for  fraudulent  purposes. 

The  importance  of  a  jury  trial  in  such  cases  has  been  recognised 
by  Judge  Brewstcr  in  Com.  ex  rel.  vs.  Kirkbride,  2  Brewster,  402.  The 
•wit  of  habeaus  corpus  is  not  a  sufficient  safeguard. 

In  setting  forth  the  importance  of  allowing  the  alleged  lunatic  an 
opportunity  to  appear,  the  author  says : 

"The  test  of  sanity  is  a  mental  test  wholly  within  the  power  of  the 
accused  to  accomplish  and  without  any  witnesses,  professional  or  lay, 
to  back  him  up.  Suppose  twO(  paid  experts  in  insanity  in  the  pay  of 
the  other  side,  swear  defendant's  mind  cannot  tell  what  his  past  history 
has  been — that  said  defendant's  mind  is  a  total  blank  upon  the  subject. 
Would  that  professional  and  paid  and  interested  oath  stand  against  the 
defendant's  refutation  thereof  by  taking  the  stand  and  promptly  and 
lucidly  giving  his  past  history,  provided  he  were  afforded  his  legal 
privilege  of  taking  the  stand  in  place  of  being  kept  away  from  court 
and  having  to  allow  his  liberty  and  property  to  be  perjured  away  from 
him  in  his  enforced  absence?'  (Page  217.) 

Collusion  would  be  very  difficult  to  prove.  It  has  been  held  that 
no  presumption  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  parties  certifying  to  the 
alleged  lunacy  were  in  fact  mistaken.  Williams  vs.  Le  Bar,  141  Pa., 
149. 

The  subject  is  an  important  and  interesting  one,  and  the  book 
shows  extensive  and  careful  research.  It  is  forcefully  written  and  car- 
ries conviction" 


LAW  NOTES. 

Northport,  New  York,  September,  1907. 
"The  Lunacy  Law  of  the  World. 

By  J.  A.  Chaloner,  Palmetto  Press, 
Palmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  North  Carolina. 
The  writer  is  assuredly  earnest,     .     .     .     setting  forth  the  unques- 
tionable, abuses  to  which  the  state  of  the  lunacy  laws  has  given  rise. 

The  exhaustiveness  of  his  research  into  the  question  compels  ad- 
miration; an  author  who  can  work  through  lunacy  laws  from  the  time 
of  the  Emperor  Conrad  down  to  the  present." 

Pelmetto  Press,  Roanoke  Rapids,  North  Carolina. 
Bound  in  Law  Buckram;  Five  Dollars. 


APPENDIX  59 


INDEX. 

Page 

"All  the  World's  a  Stage" 21 

An  Echo  to  Walt  Whitman's  "Barbaric  Yawp"  14 

Armour  of  the  Soul,  The  54 

Bloodthirsty    29 

Box  of  Kittens,  A   30 

Britannia    7 

Call,   A    38 

"Canny    Andy"    28 

Columbia    8 

Death    53 

First  Hewing  of  the  World's  Pioneers,  The  20 

Fountain  of  a  Hundred  Jets,  The  12 

Fresh-Water  Ananias,  A    56 

Future  Duke  of  Asteroid,  The  57 

G.  K.  Chesterton   27 

Germania    (i)    5 

Germania   (2)    6 

Jezebel    31 

"Le  Noir   Faineant"    43 

Life-Dance,  The    3 

Maeterlinck    ^ 

Magic  Crucible,  A  4 

Midnight    3» 

My  Parents    30 

Panel-House,  A    :9 

Poet-Caravan,   A    

Prince  of  Liars,  A   24 

Queen  of  the  Pacific,  The  ll 


60  APPENDIX 


Page 

Rosary,  The  (i)   45 

Rosary,  The  (2)   46 

Rosary,  The  (3)   47 

Rosary,  The  (4)   48 

Rosary,  The  (5)   49 

Rosary,  The  (6)   50 

Rubicon  of  the  Unknown,  The  41 

Salt- Water  Ananias,  A    55 

Salut  aux  Aieux  (To  Ancestors)    13 

Sans  a  Wedding  Garment  10 

Shaw  Once  More  21 

Shaw  Macaw 22 

"Shaving  of  Shag  Pat,"  The  23 

Solitude    33 

Syracuse  Post-Standard-Ot7   17 

That  Pension-List    9 

"The  Love  of  Money  is  the  Root  of  All  Evil"  35 

"There  is  a  Tide,  etc."  42 

"The  Heart  is  Deceitful,"  etc 34 

Tolstoy    25 

Tricolore,   The    15 

Turkey-Trot,  The   32 

Twentieth  Century  Psalm   ( i )    51 

Twentieth  Century  Psalm   (2)    52 

Watch-Towers  of  Liberty,  The 16 

Whipping- Post,  The   18 

Wordsworth    40 


APPENDIX  61 


ALIGNMENT  OF  SONNETS. 

1.  A  Poet-Caravan. 

2.  "All  the  World's  a  Stage." 

3.  The  Life-Dance. 

4.  A  Magic  Crucible. 

5.  Germania  (i). 

6.  Germania  (2). 
7'.  Britannia. 

8.  Columbia. 

9.  That  Pension-List 

10.  Sans  a  Wedding  Garment. 

11.  The  Queen  of  the  Pacific. 

12.  The  Fountain  of  a  Hundred  Jets. 

13.  Salut  aux  Aieux  (to  Ancestors). 

14.  An  Echo  to  Walt  Whitman's  "Barbaric  Yawp.' 

15.  The  Tricolore. 

16.  The  Watch-Towers  of  Liberty. 
17'.  The  Syracuse  Post-Standard-Ot7. 

18.  The  Whipping-Post. 

19.  A  Panel-House. 

20.  The  First  Hewing  of  the  World's  Pioneers. 

21.  Shaw  Once  More. 

22.  Shaw  Macaw. 

23.  "The  Shaving  of  Shag-Pat." 

24.  A  Prince  of  Liars. 

25.  Tolstoy. 

26.  Maeterlinck. 

27.  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

28.  "Canny  Andy." 

29.  Bloodthirsty! 

30.  A  Box  of  Kittens. 

31.  Jezebel. 

32.  The  Turkey-Trot. 

33.  Solitude. 

34.  "The  Heart  is  Deceitful,  etc." 

35.  "The  Love  of  Money,  etc." 

36.  My  Parents. 

37.  They  Are  Seven. 

38.  Midnight. 

39.  A  Call. 

40.  Wordsworth. 


62  APPENDIX 


41.  The  Rubicon  of  the  Unknown. 

42.  "There  is  a  Tide,  etc." 

43.  "Le  Noir  Faineant." 

44.  The  Rosary  (i). 

45.  The  Rosary  (2). 

46.  The  Rosary  (3). 

47.  The  Rosary  (4). 

48.  The  Rosary  (5). 

49.  The  Rosary  (6). 

50.  A  Twentieth  Century  Psalm  (i). 

51.  A  Twentieth  Century  Psalm  (2). 

52.  Death. 

53.  The  Armour  of  the  Soul. 

54.  A  Salt-Water  Ananias. 

55.  A  Fresh-Water  Ananias. 

56.  The  Future  Duke  of  Asteroid. 


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